With Great Change Comes Great Responsibility
by Shadow Master
Summary: (BtVS/Tenchi Muyo OVAs primarily with some Universe elements/Elements of Outlaw Star/Others) You ever wonder if you were suffering from the 'interesting times' curse? Xander sure does and it's about to be taken to a whole new level!
1. Chapter 1

"With Great Change Comes Great Responsibility" by Shadow Master

(BtVS/Tenchi Muyo! Universe/Elements of Outlaw Star/Others)

Email: ryley(underscore)breen

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted material contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and/or associated companies. I make no profit from this whatsoever and I have no intention of changing this at any point in the future. I write because it's fun and because there are some readers who enjoy my work. Therefore I would appreciate it if no legal action were taken against me. I can assure you that even if you bled me dry of every cent I had and sold off all my possessions you probably wouldn't make even a quarter of your legal fees back.

Note: In terms of Timeline this begins during the final episode of BtVS season three and after the conclusion of Tenchi Muyo! Ryo Ohki but before the start of Tenchi Muyo GXP. As for the Outlaw Star Elements I will be cherry picking things to incorporate from my story based on my original plot outline and what seems interesting at the time.

Note 2: Deviations from canon are part of what makes fan fiction stories great so if you don't like things like that I suggest you look for another story to read. While I will do my best to respect the source material and keep the characters acting the way they should my top priority is telling the story I want to tell. Remember I do this for fun. Not because I'm being paid or because I want to turn this into a job where I'd get paid. This is a hobby for me, a way to have fun, and nothing more.

Note 3: Positive reviews and constructive criticisms will be gratefully received. Flames, bashing reviews and people generally just out to spread their hateful/venomous attitude around will be ignored.

_With Great Change Comes Great Responsibility_

_**The Temple of the Choushin**_

_**Local Time Immaterial But in Multiverse Earth-031097 it would be New Years Eve 1981**_

_**Lady Tokimi's POV**_

It was a common belief among those of the mortal races on the lower dimensional planes that she and her sisters were above such things as boredom, frustration or any other duress associated with work. This was nothing new since it was to be expected that the mortals would assume that beings so far above them would be beyond them in every way possible.

To bad they were wrong.

Being an all powerful higher being partially responsible for the creation of the multiverse only magnified the accumulated stress a sentient being would build up over time. Normally she'd deal with it by stirring up some trouble somewhere and using whatever happened next as a form of light entertainment. Unlike her normal efforts of introducing chaos and conflict in an effort to reach the goal set by herself and her two siblings, the events she brought about for fun were only casually planned. After all, it was so much more fun when there were a few surprises mixed in with the plot she'd written. However in this one instance she didn't think that such a diversion would be enough to escape the work-related stress she'd built up over the last couple of millennia or so.

No, she needed something original, something bold, and if possible something that would cause her sisters no end of aggravation for a few centuries. Some would think that Washu would be oblivious after reducing herself so much and being locked away by Kagato but she knew he brainiac sister still possessed enough cosmic awareness to know what was going on. True, the amount of awareness was proportional to the magnitude of the event but, considering the fact that she would be involved, she was certain that pompous pink sibling would be FULLY aware.

As for Tsunami, she was fused with that Juraian princess, one of several possible futures they'd been aware of in the beginning, but there was no way her sister would miss her descent from the temple. The fact that the fused Choushin wouldn't be able to just come after her in a flash to interfere with her fun would no doubt cause the blue haired being great stress and distraction. At most her sister might try to contact her telepathically to inquire as to what she was up to.

Frowning a bit at that, she realized that she might need to make some concessions and sacrifices in order to keep her sisters from completely casting aside their mortal roles. Descending at her full power would just make a mess of that plane of existence, setting back their eternities-long work, to say nothing of the damage to the mortal races themselves. Sure, they could just reset things but, given the cosmic nature of their mission to bring about the creation of a being even stronger than they, it was quite likely that some variable would be thrown off one way or another.

While she might be looking for a way to have some fun and get away from her omnipotent work, that didn't mean she was willing to inadvertently add more to her workload.

_Hmmmm… what to do, what to do…_ she thought as she began working on the details. _I suppose the simplest thing to do would be to store most of my powers here at the temple and descend in a form only a little more powerful than a member of the Juraian royal family._

It galled her to be forced to do this since she didn't share the inclinations of her sisters to assume a mortal form to search for what they all wanted. To her the odds of finding a superior being while limited in mortal form were ridiculously against them and they would fare much better from an ascended position like her own.

Fortunately for her this would only be a temporary descent and loss of power.

She would be sure to retain the means to ascend once more, as well as a means of making bothersome pests buzz off, but that would be it.

With her personal particulars handled, the only thing left was to pick a universe and, more precisely, a planet in that universe to look for something fun to do. It'd have to be primitive enough that they wouldn't have the technology to discern anything as being off about her but also had to be advanced enough so as to allow her to find something to suit her tastes. It would also need to be far enough from the Juraian Empire that Tsunami wouldn't be able to use trickery to arrange a quick trip to her chosen planet. Given the size of her sister's little empire, that didn't leave a lot of places for her to go but then a thought occurred to her.

Why not go and give THAT planet a little visit?

After all, the last time that the three of them met to debate how to bring about their chosen result, one particular planet was found to have promise as a possible origin point. Sure, she would prioritize her own fun, but it couldn't hurt to take a look about the little mud ball for some sign that their speculation had genuine substance. A little bit of fun and little bit of casual work was precisely what she needed to let all the stress she'd built up bleed off.

_Very well… Earth, here I come!_ she thought with a grin of anticipation.

_**Another Location**_

_**The Same Time**_

"You do know there's no way you're going to pull this off, right?" his cousin asked rhetorically from his right side.

"Don't be so pessimistic, Aiden!" he said, brushing off his cousin's concern. "As far as the folks back home are concerned, you and I are 'exploring' the outer edges of the empire for the greater benefit of our people. Very upstanding, very responsible and best of all completely above reproach by even the more hard ass of Dad's advisors."

"Until one of them decides to backtrack the signal from your 'reports' to here," Aiden said, not letting up even a little.

"Not a problem! That's the reason I sent your lieutenant there in a ship," he said, quite pleased with how much thought he'd put into the plan. "All communications will be routed through her ship and, since she'll be moving, it'll really look like I'm exploring where I'm supposed to be exploring."

"Assuming she doesn't run into trouble or assuming your parents don't send someone to confirm you're where you're supposed to be," Aiden said, sounding like he was determined to be a stick in the mud as the phrase went.

"Please! Most of the empire has already been charted thoroughly, leaving practically nothing left," he said, getting a bit irritated at the wet blanket. "Plus the empire is so big there's no way any sufficiently advanced civilization hasn't heard of it. They'd have to be insane to so much as shoot in the general direction of one of our vessels. As for my parents sending someone to check up on me, they won't do that unless I miss one of my regular check-in reports. So quit worrying! You're killing my good mood."

"Very well, cousin," Aiden sighed, no doubt realizing that he was going to have his fun whether he liked it or not. "I can see now that the only way to minimize the damage is to be your escort. So where, precisely, are you planning on going to 'have fun'?"

"Well, I thought I'd take a peek inside that non-interference preserve our stuck up neighbors have been quietly keeping tabs on," he replied, remembering how he'd come across the location. "There's nothing more fun than finding out what some cocky morons are hiding and then releasing the information to EVERYONE who can hear it. Plus, if it's so interesting to them, then I guess I can find something to interest me, too."

"Stuck up neighbors… you can't possibly mean THEM!" Aiden exclaimed as he realized just what kind of mess his cousin would be getting them into. "Our empire is at best a quarter the size of their empire and no one that's challenged them in the last six hundred years has come even close to winning!"

"Our empire might be smaller but we make up for quantity with quality," he said, fully confident in the strength of his empire. "As for the rest, that's just because no one of our royal bloodline has given it a try. Besides, most of the territory those idiots hold is empty space or resource settlements. If you condensed everything to the minimum area needed to house their real population then we'd be pretty much equal."

"And their ships, their ROYAL ships, what about them?" Aiden asked, sounding like this was the deal breaker for him.

"I… will admit that they're not BAD as far as warships are concerned," he replied, grudgingly admitting that a fight between the warships of his people and THOSE ships would not end well even in victory. "But they don't have that many of them and they're almost exclusively the property of the top members of the royal family members. The odds of them sending one out to handle our TINY incursion is ridiculous and it is far more likely that they'd send out one of their long range law enforcement craft. Those kind of ships we can easily handle and that's assuming they even find out I'm there in the first place."

Personally he didn't think it very likely.

While it was true that those high and mighty neighbors of his were keeping tabs on that area, he didn't think that it was SO important to them that they'd send one of their best and most powerful ships. After all, if there was anything of true value in that area, there'd be a tighter security net and one permanent patrol group circling the entire area in order to keep people out. Nothing he'd heard of or seen personally suggested anything more than a few scattered automated listening posts run by programs decades old, if not older. With such trivial obstacles it would be all too easy to slip into the area unnoticed and have a good look around.

A good look around AND some fun if he had anything to say about it.

_Yep! My plan is foolproof! _he thought as he moved to tell the navigator which course to plot. _Nothing can go wrong!_

_**Eighteen Years Later**_

_**Early June of 1999**_

_**Sunnydale, California**_

_**The Courtyard of Sunnydale High School**_

_**Alexander 'no middle name admitted' Harris' POV**_

"Am I late? Did we fight?" Willow asked, arriving at her seat next to him and Buffy.

A sure fire sign that Willow was worried and anxious at the same time was when she failed to realize that if the fight had started before she'd arrived there was no way she wouldn't know. There'd be screaming, roaring, lots of wounds and probably a few dead bodies littering the ground. Since there wasn't any of that and everything was normal, obviously the fighting hadn't started.

Still, he didn't begrudge her for feeling the way she was.

They were after all about to face off against what for all intents and purposes would be a Kong-sized demonic snake with only a hastily armed and trained army, as well as an off the cuff plan. Sure, it was HIS plan and he was pretty sure he'd covered all the bases, but with only half-assed soldier memories to work with he couldn't be absolutely certain. Still, one of the things you could always say about the Scooby gang is that they were quick to adapt to unexpected changes in circumstances and think on their feet. Besides, even if his plan didn't work perfectly, it should still do enough damage to Wilkins for them to stand a fighting chance with any plan B, C or D they came up with.

Not a great chance but at least it'd be a chance.

It was more than most people got in Sunnydale.

"Well, what a day this is. A special day," Mayor Wilkins said, reading from his three by five cards. "Today is our centennial, the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of Sunnydale. And I know what that means to all of you kids. Not a DARN thing. 'Cause today something much more important happens. Today you all graduate from high school. Today all the pain and work and the excitement is finally over and what's a hundred years of history compared to that?"

_Snore fest!_ he thought, never having understood the need for older people to go into long winded speeches like this. _Just get to the point already and transform!_

"My god… he's gonna do the whole speech." Buffy gasped in shocked realization.

His mood took an even deeper turn as he realized that the blonde Slayer was right. He'd been sort of expecting that the transformation would happen during the time the Mayor was standing in front of the podium. The idea that he'd have to sit through an entire boring and completely too long speech before getting down to business… there was only one opinion to be had.

EVIL.

Buffy hit it right on the head with that one to be sure. Only a truly evil man would put teenagers through an ultimately meaningless and boring speech before turning into a monster to devour all of them. Sure, he'd gotten used to the various forms of evil present in the world, more so since meeting Buffy, but this was approaching ruler of hell levels of evil as far as he was concerned.

"For all of you it may be that there is a place in Sunnydale's history, whether you like it or not. It's been a long road getting here. For you… for Sunnydale. There has been achievement, joy, good times… and there has been grief. There's been loss. Some people who should be here today… aren't," Wilkins said a moment of regret and sadness that looked remarkably real for an act. "But we are. Journey's end. And what is a journey? Is it just… distance traveled? Time spent? No. It's what happens on the way, it the things that happen to you. At the end of the journey you're not the same. Today is about change.

"Graduation doesn't just mean your circumstances change, it means you do. You ascend… to a higher level. Nothing will ever be the same," Mayor Wilkins said as darkness fell over him and everyone else outside. "Nothing. And so as we look back on… nnggh… on the events that brought us to this day… argh."

_Looks like the curtain's about to rise,_ he thought as he covertly patted the area of his robe where his weapons were concealed. _Time to rock and roll._

Indeed he could practically feel it in his bones, the unholy energy beginning to build up and ooze outwards and, to be honest, it was making him feel a little sick. Not enough that he'd be forced to sit out the graduation fight but he'd definitely not be pushing his body any harder than he had to lest he aggravate the ill feelings further.

"We… guh… we must all…aaahhhh!" Mayor Wilkins yelled as he gripped the podium in order to remain on his feet. "It has begun. My destiny. It's a little sooner then I expected I had this whole section on civic pride… but I guess we'll just skip to the big finish!"

With that the consistent building up of energy exploded into action even as the horrible man that'd both founded and ruled over Sunnydale ceased to be a man and became something decidedly not human. It was sickening to see as flesh stretched, warped and transformed from what anyone would consider normal to something only a demon would consider ordinary. In fact… with the sudden increase in hell energy… the sick feeling within him quadrupled in strength almost to the point he knew he'd have trouble even walking.

Nevertheless he knew that the gang was counting on him to lead the other students while Buffy tricked the Mayor indoors to ground zero so he resolved himself to keep his afflicted body's condition to himself. It wouldn't be the first time some teenager pulled the tough guy routine and did his best to keep others from finding out how sick he really was. He just needed to fight smart and do his best to direct the students effectively throughout the battle.

"Now!" Buffy shouted, letting all who'd been briefed on the plan know that the time to act was now.

With as much normality as he could manage he threw off his graduation gown and brought up the axe he'd chosen from Giles' armory, forcing his stance to remain strong despite the flip-flops his stomach was doing.

"Flame units!" Buffy commanded, causing two students to begin unleashing streams of fire towards the giant snake that used to be a human warlock.

"First wave!" he yelled, causing those with crossbows to take aim. "FIRE!"

With that order the crossbow bolts flew through the air but, much like the gang had been expecting, only one out of every ten actually pierced the demon snake's flesh. All the others struck someplace too hard or too durable to do more than leave pin pricks before falling to the ground but then again the plan had never been to kill it with bug bites. The reason behind the barrage was to anger and aggravate the Mayor so that when Buffy made her move he'd be less inclined to think and more inclined to act on his emotions.

_With a little luck by the time he clues into the truth it'll be too late to do anything except think 'shit',_ he thought even as the Mayor lunged forward and gobbled up a student whole.

The fighting raged on even as he and Buffy co-lead the troops to combat the forces of evil that surrounded them, calling for charges then retreats as was necessary, but soon enough the time came for the next phase of the plan.

"Fall Back! Get back!" Buffy yelled from atop one of the chairs before turning to Willow. "Go!"

"Good luck!" Willow said before running off to join the force fighting the vamps attempting to prevent the Mayor's meal from escaping.

"Xander! Take'em down!" Buffy ordered before she went off to fulfill her own part in the plan.

"Everyone, hand to hand!" he ordered, causing those wielding crossbows to drop them in favor of a cross and a wooden stake. "Everyone! Lets go! Move! Move!"

Unfortunately for him he wasn't able to move as quickly as the others because the first time he tried he almost fell over, nauseous. In any case he managed to get to the rear of the combat group facing off against the Mayor's rear forces and immediately he went to work directing where best to send the student soldiers.

"Right flank close in. Close!" he ordered but became irritated when Jason and Paul didn't obey. "That means you two! You guys are right flank!"

The two teens immediately hurried to obey but to him it was a sure sign of the weakness of a hastily assembled army as well as one made up of civilians. They had no training, no discipline, and were simply putting all their effort into the fight hoping to come out alive. Already he'd witnessed students perish either at the hands of Mayor McSnake or his vampire henchmen and it scarred his soul. It was easy to bear the guilt of not saving those he heard about in the newspaper or secondhand from Buffy in the library but to see it happen right in front of him… that was something completely different.

The Soldier within him told him that in war casualties were inevitable and that all you could do was promise to do better next time.

It didn't make him feel any better.

Instincts not his own flared, causing him to immediately zero in to his right just in time to see a vampire charging at him, no doubt discerning his inner weakness. Fang Faces were scavengers, parasites, and, while they might not have evolved like mortal animals, they had developed the necessary senses as well as instincts for discerning prey from a crowd. Bringing up his axe, he waited to see how the bloodsucker would strike first and, the moment he had enough clues, he launched his counter attack while evading injury himself. However, even as he struck, he could feel the exertion cause the ill feelings within him to sap the strength from the blow resulting in barely a scratch.

_Dammit! What the hell is going on?!_ He scrambled to negate the vampire's efforts to harm him. _I've been on the Hellmouth all my life and been fighting baddies for the last three without getting sick like this._

Whatever the cause, if he couldn't run away or fight back, it was only a matter of time before the vamp sank its fangs into him.

The only chance he had was for Buffy to get the Mayor to the library as soon as possible so that Giles could blow him up with the explosives they'd stuffed into that area. It was a universal adage that if you took out the leader of an enemy army, the soldiers would often suffer a decided drop in morale and that could very well cause the vamps to scatter.

He seriously hoped it did because he wasn't going to last very long otherwise.

Almost instantly afterwards he heard the crashing and destructive sounds that could only be a King Kong-sized snake slithering its way through the internal corridors of the school. As fast as Buffy was and, with Wilkins no doubt close behind her, it would take the pair less than a minute to reach the library.

Four seconds after that, if all went according to plan, BOOM!

_I can do it! I CAN last two minutes! _he thought fiercely as he continued to spar with the vampire seeking to end his life.

With a goal set he began to work a plan out in his head to maximize what he could do in his ill state while minimizing the risk to his life. He had no idea how successful the plan would be but it was better than just winging it with such a method having a mixed results aspect to it. Despite this, though, the near misses and close calls kept coming, with the ill feelings dancing within him not helping the situation in the least. When unexpectedly an opening showed up for him to do serious damage to the bloodsucker, he did not hesitate to go for it in order to turn the fight around.

Too bad that was precisely when G-Man set off the explosives, sending a shockwave as well as debris in all directions, throwing him off his balance, causing his biological condition to worsen. Tumbling to the ground he felt for sure that he would wind up tossing his cookies within the next twenty seconds but he knew this would not help him in his fight. Doing his best to mentally command his body to settle down and hold off discharging his stomach contents until later he began to work his way back to his feet.

Unfortunately the vamp had other plans.

The fang face hadn't been thrown as bad as he had been by the explosion and therefore had recovered sooner, allowing it to attack quicker. As a result he was at once on his back, using what little strength he had in his arms to keep the corpse from biting him in the throat or just snapping his neck. Too bad it was proving to be a little too much and, as the vampire's open jaws drew closer to his neck, a flame of defiance and anger manifested within him. Of all the things that might've spelled his end, the one thing he had refused to let it be was death by vampire. He refused to go out like Jesse had! He refused to fall at the hands of those who had taken his chosen brother from him and that he'd sworn bloody revenge against.

"GET…THE…FUCK…OFF…OF…ME!" he growled as the flame within him evolved into an out of control inferno of destruction.

Whether it was the adrenaline boost or something else entirely, he felt strength beginning to return to his body, causing the bloodsucker's advance to first slow, then to completely freeze in place. This surprised the member of the undead but he didn't care because, in his anger, all that mattered to him was getting the demon infested corpse off of him. Determination and focus honed his emotions into a concentrated stream of energy but, rather than settle for simply pushing the vampire off of him, he let it explode forth with the mightiest yell he could. The vamp flew off to the side and without thinking he rolled onto his hands and knees before reaching for his axe to finish his foe off.

His forward momentum, however, stalled when he saw the vamp shakily rise up onto its hands and feet while above it there was a visible crack in the tree it had obviously been thrown into.

To throw something with the mass and weight of a human corpse hard enough to create such a crack… for normal human strength that would be impossible. Even taking into account the near superhuman strength one got from an adrenaline surge during a life or death situation, it shouldn't have been enough to damage the tree to such a degree.

"What… what the fuck are you?!" the vamp asked, sounding thrown as though being confronted by something it'd never encountered before.

For a moment he was tempted to give into the mood of the moment and say something like 'I do not know' but he also knew that, regardless of whatever strength he now had, it wouldn't last. Sooner or later it'd fade and, knowing his luck, it'd probably be sooner. Therefore, with as much speed as he could manage, he charged towards the recovering vamp, axe in hand, determined to end the existence of his hated foe. The undead being tried to get into a position to defend itself but it proved to be too little too late as, with a single chop, he decapitated it. Watching it turn to ash, he felt some satisfaction but he was also determined to aid in the mopping up of the dead mayor's forces while he still had the renewed strength in his body.

Or at least that was the plan before a rumbling noise caught his attention in a vise grip.

Turning towards the school as the rumbling noise was matched by shaking in the ground, a bad feeling began to rise up within him as his subconscious came to a conclusion that his conscious mind hadn't come to yet. Unfortunately reality wasn't the most patient sort and it leapt right to the grand entrance in the form of a large serpentine form rising from the rubble that was once Sunnydale High School.

"No…way…" he managed to mutter in disbelief at the still living ascended mayor.

In the blink of an eye his mind went through everything from the composition of the explosives to their placement within the school until finally confirming the estimated strength at ground zero. It didn't make sense! Giles was certain that the last time a demon of this sort was killed it'd taken a volcanic eruption complete with lava and toxic gasses. In an effort to recreate that, he'd worked with Willow to create the most powerful explosion they could with what they had on hand, taking into account how to use the school to force the power inward rather than letting it go outward. By all accounts and Willow's extensive calculations, the ascended mayor should've been hit with enough lethal force to kill him giant form or not.

So what the hell was going on?

"Golly gee! To think you children had thought up such a violent trick," Mayor McSnake said in a distorted yet evil voice. "Still, they say a good jolt to the system is an excellent way to warm a new body up so you have my thanks for that. Now… shall we begin the banquet?"

What were they going to do now?

_**Giles' POV**_

"Um… we got a plan B, Giles?" Buffy asked, looking up at the demon snake form of Wilkins that actually looked like it'd gotten a bit bigger than it'd been back in the courtyard.

"Not as such," he replied as his stared dumbfounded at the mighty demon they'd failed to slay.

Indeed they'd pinned all their hopes on the explosion killing the Mayor that they hadn't thought to come up with a fallback plan if that failed. To be brutally honest, he'd been of the opinion that if such a massive and controlled blast failed to kill the ascended Richard Wilkins then nothing short of a nuclear blast would fare any better. Sadly they didn't have access to one of those and, even if they'd been on good terms with the Council, arranging a nuclear strike on Sunnydale would've been… difficult, if not potentially a way to make matters worse. In the end there was only one thing they could do at this point.

"Get to the others. Order everyone to get to their vehicles and get as far from Sunnydale as possible," he ordered, bitterly disliking the taste of the words coming out of his mouth. "With luck at least some will survive."

"Survive? You mean…" Buffy said, her mind clicking in realization of what her ex-Watcher was ordering.

He was ordering the evacuation of Sunnydale.

It was a bitter pill to swallow that, after all their victories these past three years this would be their first terrible loss. However it was unavoidable. They had nothing with which to counter the giant serpent and remaining would only result in what was basically suicide. If they ran, if they pushed their cars to their limits, then at least there was a chance that some of them would get so far away that Wilkins wouldn't pursue them. Even if he'd ascended to the state of a true demon, that did not mean that Wilkins could just slither about the world doing whatever he pleased with impunity. There were numerous organizations both demonic, aligned with the light and neutral established throughout the world. While some were new, others were quite old and, as was expected, with age came great power.

He speculated that the reason why knowledge of the Ascension process was almost impossible to come by was because various organizations actively moved to eradicate it. Any books, scrolls or other methods of passing on the information were destroyed while anyone who chose to make the attempt were quietly assassinated with all of their work eradicated. The one that Anya likely knew about was likely one of the few that just barely managed to slip past the various organizations that in the past.

That being said, it was quite probable that at least half of them had precautions in place should their efforts to outright prevent an Ascension fail.

Wilkins would expect that as well and would not make a move beyond the borders of Sunnydale until he had some idea of the threats that would be sent his way.

Then, of course, there was the fact that mankind had progressed quite a bit since the time of the last Ascension as well as the ancient time of the Old Ones. The weapons of mass destruction that had been created in the last hundred years at least would be more than enough to eradicate Mayor Wilkins at these early stages after his transformation. Perhaps later on, once the former human had grown more accustomed to his serpentine form and explored the powers only found in Old Ones, a bit of expansion might be justifiable.

Bottom line? Now was the perfect time to make their escape.

"Sadly, yes. Defeating Wilkins is no longer an option for us," he said with defeated eyes. "Now the best we can hope for is survival. Survival and the hope that another means of defeating him will present itself at some point in the future."

He could see the stubbornness flicker in her eyes but it didn't last long and then she nodded before running for the main courtyard to carry out his orders. Seeing this, he began to make his way to the parking lot, intent on getting his own car ready since the more cars they had going, the more directions they could scatter in. The best way to increase everyone's chances of survival was to give Wilkins as many targets to pursue as possible rather than clump everyone together in a signal convoy. It might be cruel to use innocent people as decoys and distractions but it was the only plan he could come up with only a few minutes notice.

_I hope the old girl has one last race left in her,_ he thought after arriving at his car. _It certainly would not do for her to stall before we reached relative safety._

Getting in he wasted no time inserting the key and going through the normal process of getting his classic car up and running. He sent a prayer of thanks to whatever god might've been watching over him when it started on the first try and immediately pulled out of his parking spot, heading for the stairs closest to the courtyard.

As he approached he could see that the volunteer fighting force that they'd assembled had managed to dust most of the vampires Wilkins had gathered to keep his 'meal' contained. It saddened him to see that only half of them were still alive, with the rest having been slain or were in the process of having their blood sucked dry from their throats. He imagined that Wilkins had ordered the fiends to abstain from feeding but expecting the undead minions to obey was like expecting Xander to commit to rigorous study.

Still, if as many of those present were to get away as possible, he needed to at least temporarily remove the vampire minions from the equation. Thus he aimed his car for the rear of the enemy formation and pushed up the speed as high as he dared, ramming into them. The dents would be considerable but, considering the lives at risk, a damaged classic car would be a small price to pay.

"Everyone! RUN! Get to your vehicles!" he yelled out his window before shoving his passenger side door open. "Hurry!"

With all the speed of someone fleeing for their lives the humans present obeyed him, running for their vehicles with all due speed. Buffy, Willow, Xander and Oz squeezed into his car but predictably Cordelia left for her car, probably not trusting his to be quick enough. As soon as the doors to his car closed he moved forward, deftly avoiding the fleeing humans even as he made for the street closest to where they were. As soon as he was free of obstructions he shifted his way through the gears even as he pushed the accelerator closer to the floor. As much as he'd like to ease the old girl into her top speed, he seriously doubted that Wilkins would be so accommodating. Right now he had to push things as far as he dared and maybe a bit more if the teenagers under his charge were to stand any chance of surviving this.

"Running away? That sounds like…" the ascended mayor said in his inhuman voice, "…FUN!"

His heart chilled at the sound of that, as though feeling the cold hand of the grim reaper himself grasp it within his chest. Nevertheless, even as the sounds of destruction filled the air like an out of control train wreck, he focused entirely on driving to the best of his ability while also maintaining a grasp of just where the Mayor was. Running wouldn't do them much good if the demonic snake somehow managed to blindside them before they passed the city limits.

"I am SO glad I managed to convince my mom to leave town today," Buffy said even as she tried to prevent what was going on to rattle her any more than necessary. "There'd be no time to stop by my house to pick her up."

"We would make time if she were there," he said firmly, not wanting Buffy to regret more than she needed to. "Nevertheless, we are indeed lucky that she heeded your warning and left Sunnydale. Would that we the other students were so lucky."

When they'd initially gathered the students to explain the battle plan, he had recommended to each of them that they find some way to get their parents out of Sunnydale for at least two to three days. Most had looked as though they would do just that but the rest looked skeptical as to their chances of success without providing their parents with concrete proof of the supernatural. Given the time constraints they were forced to work with that was unfeasible, so they had been forced to leave it up to each student's aptitude for persuasion. Given that some had come with the clear intent of fighting alongside their children, it was clear that some had indeed been quite persuasive but not in the way he had hoped.

Indeed, if more had left as Missus Summers had, perhaps there would be fewer deaths to remind him of his failure to plan more thoroughly.

"Giles? Are you sure your car can handle this?" Willow asked as his car creaked rather noticeably as he went around a corner quickly.

"While I will concede that that this is more 'action' than it is used to seeing, I am confident that my diligent maintenance will ensure that it will carry us to safety," he replied as the sound of explosions and destruction mixed with the inhuman roars of the Ascended mayor. "Anything past that… I cannot guarantee anything."

"It's better… than nothing," Xander said, sounding a little strained at the moment.

Not that he could blame the lad considering all they had been through in the last hour alone.

Coming around a corner so fast that the tires screeched, he could finally see the length of road that'd take them to the 'you are now leaving Sunnydale' sign. Once they were past that sign they would officially out of Wilkins' territory and hopefully in the clear for the foreseeable future. Glancing in the rear view mirror, he could see the monstrous form of the mayor lunging at some poor souls on the ground before working his jaws, as though chewing something. He shuddered to think of what the poor souls were going through but forced his mind to remain centered on escaping the territory of the terrible enemy.

Out of nowhere his car seemed to slam into something, halting it in its tracks as though it'd rammed right into a concrete barricade. His mind was scattered and pain lashed out throughout his body like water in untamed rapids, only regressing after what seemed like an eternity even though it likely was only a minute or two. Once his mind organized itself enough he opened his eyes, or more precisely one of them since he'd apparently been struck in the face in such a way so as to cause significant swelling around the other eye. Following his initial thoughts of ascertaining the wellbeing of the others, he turned his head despite the pain it caused him.

What he saw troubled him enough that he immediately moved to remove his seatbelt so he could have more freedom of movement.

Buffy, who'd been in the passenger seat next to him, was dazed and, unless he missed his guess, her right arm appeared broken in two places. Slayer resiliency would ensure that even with only one arm she would still be able to move about and perhaps even fight, but in the end that mattered little. Looking over his shoulder he could see that Xander, Willow and Oz were a little better off, if only because of the padding of the seats and the fact that they'd had the forethought to wear their seatbelts. Oz was the best off, only showing minimal signs of his head impacting on the back of the seat and would likely be in the best state to move about of them all. Willow looked as though she was only just barely retaining a grip on consciousness while Xander looked like someone who'd been trying to get over a hangover, only to be thrown on a theme park ride that focused on spinning riders VERY quickly.

Basically it looked as though he could vomit at any moment.

While normally he could be quite distressed at the thought of someone's lunch being dumped in mush form on the floor of his classic car, there wasn't much point to it now.

"What… what happened…?" Buffy asked after her mind cleared sufficiently.

"I am not entirely sure," he replied as he tried to force his door open. "However it is clear that remaining here will gain us nothing. Let us get everyone out of the car first and then proceed from there."

With a grunt of agreement Buffy used her only good arm to shove her door open despite some protesting metal mechanisms, even as his exertions finally got his door opened. Stepping out into the open air, he staggered somewhat as his fresh bodily injuries protested the action but he pushed such opposition aside before moving to open the rear door to get Oz out.

Fortunately it looked as though, while the front doors had suffered some damage, the rear ones were barely scratched, allowing for easy opening. Once done he gently yet swiftly helped the young man of few words out before the two of them carefully pulled Willow out, laying her on the grass a short distance away. While the fact that she was successfully managing to retain some measure of consciousness was a good sign that she might make the full trip for the time being, someone would have to carry her to wherever their new destination turned out to be.

When he turned around to begin the process of helping Xander out of the car, however, he suddenly found himself flung backward by two hands sending him tumbling to Willow's side. When his motion stopped and he looked back the way he'd come, fear overcame him to see that his car was blocked from sight by the massive form of the very demon snake they'd been fleeing from. That fear was soon paired with sorrow when a severed arm dropped from above, clad in a shirt sleeve identical to what poor Oz had been wearing mere seconds ago.

"NNNOOOO!" Willow cried out at the sight even as he raised his gaze to look into the inhuman serpentine eyes of Wilkins, who looked down on them with a bloody maw.

"So this is what werewolf tastes like. I'll have to see what other rarities Jacob's restaurant can offer me," Wilkins said after swallowing the remains of Daniel 'Oz' Osborne. "Hmmmm… I wonder what a budding wicca tastes like. Shall we find out, Miss Rosenberg?"

No… NO! It could not end like this! Not after all they'd suffered and all the effort they'd put into protecting the innocent from the forces of darkness.

Even though as a Watcher he'd been trained to accept that death could come at any time, the thought of losing another of the group that he'd come to see as his own children was unacceptable.

"Rrrrr!" came a deep and feral growl from within his car.

Apparently someone, or rather something, had the same opinion as him.

However, even with the primal growl, nothing prepared him for what happened next.

With every second that passed something within was increasing in size and before too long was proving to be too big to fit inside the vehicle. Nevertheless, instead of being constrained by the metal and prevented from getting any bigger, his classic car instead began to distort in form as the growth inside refused to be impeded. Before long metal was torn free from the frame revealing to all just what the hell was going on.

_Of all the things I thought I might see THIS was not one of them!_ he thought to himself as he beheld the beast-man that was losing his humanity even as he watched.

At first he thought that somehow Xander's under the weather condition had resulted in some magical malady, something quite feasible given the energies Wilkins' Ascension, but he was at a loss as to how to classify this. He'd almost classify this as lycanthropy but that condition only occurred during the three days of the full moon and, even if the eclipse met some requirement, it wouldn't explain why Oz had remained in human form.

Then, of course, there was the fact that Xander was taking on decidedly feline characteristics and was growing bigger with every passing moment. To his knowledge there was no recorded variation of werewolfism that turned a human into a half cat, half human being, much less increased the victim's size to such a large degree. Even when Oz changed, his size and mass only increased minimally with the more profound change being a repositioning as well transformation of human flesh. When he finally concluded that the transformation had come to an end, what he beheld could not be considered human in the least. Instead he likened it more to the images he'd seen of the largest cat on the planet, the liger, except he felt confident in his estimating that Xander's new form was at least double the maximum height on record. With teeth big enough to double as fence posts in terms of size, his mind was barely able to retain its equilibrium as he tried to comprehend HOW this had happened.

Two seconds later he had something a little more current to focus on for it was then that the giant liger-like feline that had once been an ordinary human named Xander Harris launched himself at the mayor. The shock the ascended mayor had no doubt felt at the sight of the transformation wore off just barely enough in time to move his body out of the way of the lunging giant jungle cat. However the moment Xander touched down on the ground it took him seconds to turn around and once more surge with feral intent. This time the transformed Warlock was not able to evade and, much to everyone's surprise, the claws Xander now sported were sharp enough to cut deeply into the pure demon's skin.

"AARGGH!" Wilkins roared in pain even as his tail lashed out to swat Xander back to the ground. "You'll pay for that!"

However the tail attack looked to only temporarily daze the teen turned liger and so, when the Mayor attempted to take a bite out of the feline, all the warlock got was a mouth full of dirt. Proving himself the quicker and more nimble of the two due to his smaller size, Xander was able to go on the attack before Wilkins could turn his serpentine gaze back the way he'd come. This time, though, instead of a simple claw slash, the founding male member of the Scoobies instead chose to use his claws to get a firm grip in the pure demon's flesh so he could take a bite out of his foe. This proved to be a bit tougher than cutting three perpendicular lines into the demon flesh but, with a monstrous growl, Xander succeeded in tear a good sized clump of foul flesh from the giant snake's body.

This, however, proved to be the final straw however for, when Wilkins finally set eyes on Xander, something happened that he had thought the warlock was weeks away from being capable of executing.

In one second the eyes of the giant demon snake glowed.

In the next second crimson lightning shot across the distance between the ascended mayor and the large feline, striking the latter with enough force to send his surrogate son flying backwards.

"XANDER!" Buffy cried out in fear for the life of one who had been her friend for three years.

"Rrraagghh! To think that a mere animal was able to harm me!" Wilkins declared with anger even as he sent a few more bolts of crimson lightning at the transformed young man. "A thousand years of suffering would not be enough to compensate me for the trouble!"

Dust, dirt and debris had long since obscured Xander making it impossible for him to discern the young man's state but, judging from the effectiveness of the first strike, he could imagine that it was not good.

Not good at all.

If one strike was enough to send Xander flying backwards at high speed, then the barrage the teenager was now being hit with was most likely breaking bones with every impact. Even if the young man's new form made him more durable than any ordinary mortal creature, there was no way Xander would be in any state to continue fighting.

Indeed he would consider it to be a true blessing if the lad was somehow still conscious at the end of the barrage.

It was a minute later that the torrent of crimson lightning came to an end, though whether this was because the mayor was satisfied with his word or had run out of magic, he did not know.

However, it was as the dirt, dust and debris had more than halfway settled that the universe chose that it hadn't had enough fun with his preconceptions about what was possible. From out of the cloud came four glowing objects arrayed in a semicircle, with identical spaces between each of them each in the loose shape of a cat's fang. When the materials flitting about the air completely dispersed he was flabbergasted to find that what he was seeing were not material objects emitting a bright blue glow but rather constructs of blue energy. More than that, behind them he could see that Xander, while not in pristine condition, was far better off than he'd originally expected after seeing the attacks fired his way.

In that very moment it was proven all too clearly why a mind running on instinct could act quicker than a sentient thinking mind could.

Before even HIS mind had recovered from the impossibility he was seeing, Xander charged with easily three times the speed he'd shown thus far, heading directly for Wilkins. Frantic with fear the mayor let loose another barrage of crimson lightning but, instead of knocking Xander back, the demonic assault either missed entirely or was deflected off to the side by some invisible barrier the energy fangs were generating. Thus it came to pass that, with a mighty roar and a burst of speed, Xander leapt towards the head of the demonic serpent, the fangs on the right side cutting clean through it mere seconds later.

"Im-im-impossible…I was…to be…all…power…ful…" Wilkins managed to get out before his brain finally caught onto the fact that it'd been carved in two.

Then, much like any other living being whose mind was no longer capable of doing its job, the serpentine corpse collapsed to the ground, with the top half of the head falling to the side. For a moment he waited, wondering if some unknown ability found only in Old Ones would somehow save the mayor, but when nothing happened after a full three minutes he released a breath he'd been holding.

It was over.

Despite the death, destruction and unbelievable phenomena, the battle that'd started at Sunnydale High School was over. A part of his mind knew that the death toll would be catastrophic, likely in the hundreds, but the majority of his brain was simply overwhelmed with relief at having survived. Against a pure demon undiluted by countless years of mixing with lesser species, they had miraculously survived with only one casualty to mourn. Considering all that Anyanka had told them and what he'd managed to find out, this was indeed cause for great joy.

However, when the four energy fangs vanished, he suspected that any parties would have to wait a few weeks.

Much like the numerous videos he'd seen of someone suffering from lycanthropy transforming during a full moon, he watched as Xander reverted back to his humanoid form.

However it was not a form that matched his last recollection of the young man. Granted, he'd never spent any real time familiarizing himself with Xander's form, he was NOT a poofter, but based on what little he had noticed the young man, while quite fit, did not previously have such muscle mass. True, helping Buffy with her Calling had done much to make the teenager more fit than he otherwise would've been but it'd been more of a compact fitness rather than something gained from lifting weights. This form, however, was more akin to what he'd seen of student of the more strength-oriented martial arts styles after no less than five years of diligent training. Xander's hair was also longer than he recalled and, unless he missed his guess, the lad's ears were right at the edge of what would be considered normal for a human being. Had they been any more different from what most would associate with a human being, he'd wager they'd be drawing comparisons to the young man's giant liger form's ears.

And then, without warning, the lad dropped to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Ignoring the others as they cried out in concern, he made his way to Xander as swiftly as his injured body would permit and once at the lad's side knelt down to check his vitals. He confirmed that the young man was breathing steadily and the heartbeat was strong. Indeed, by all accounts, it looked as though it had been exhaustion rather than an injury or medical affliction that had caused the teenager to escape.

"Thank god!" he declared as Willow and Buffy arrived at his side, with the former needing the Slayer's support in order to do so.

"Is he okay?" Willow asked, her voice still thick from the grief.

"While I do not know the specifics of how he transformed and defeated the Mayor, I can see no cause for alarm," he replied honestly even as he took off his coat to cover Xander up some.

The high school graduate's clothes had not survived the transformation, after all, but thankfully the lad had collapsed onto his stomach.

No need to make this situation any more difficult than it already was.

"How… how did he DO that?" Buffy asked, marveling at the dead mayor close by as though her brain wouldn't quite accept it.

"It's a perfectly natural response for most Ctarl-Ctarl when faced with a serious threat and I'd say a giant demon snake qualifies," came a reply not from him or Willow but another person entirely.

As swiftly yet as safely as their injuries would allow, the conscious Scoobies turned to see who had spoken and what they saw was definitely not what he'd been expecting. Personally he'd been expecting a woman in her thirties dressed as one would expect an expert in, or at least someone experienced with unusual phenomena to dress. That, of course, being semi-formal attire at the very least, perhaps with a set of glasses on her nose since many equated such things with someone smart and for some an abundance of reading could lead to them being necessary.

Instead he saw a girl that could barely be considered thirteen wearing a black short sleeved shirt over a long sleeved white one along with tan cargo shorts and black shoes. Her… hair… was certainly remarkable and quite frankly reminded him of a Noh play costume wig designed to resemble the legs and claws of a crab.

Except the hair was PINK of all things rather than the normal black!

Buffy, as her instincts demanded, immediately placed herself between those she cared about and the strange girl but this was completely ignored as the thirteen year old deftly maneuvered around the blonde to reach Xander. As if to add to the absurdity of the situation, two transparent panes of black appeared in front of the girl, almost waist high, and were soon revealed to be some sort of computer. This made him wonder if the girl wasn't some sort of magic prodigy who was only shaping her spells in forms the three of them would recognize to put them at ease. The idea became harder to support when images, numbers and terms began to cycle across the screen at a speed consistent with how quickly the girl was typing. No magic used, even the prodigies, would go to such elaborate lengths just to put strangers at ease.

"Hmmmm… just as I thought. Exposure to transmorphic inter-dimensional energy destabilized the gene lock and the strain of the situation did the rest," the girl said, confirming some unknown theory posited beforehand. "Looks like the background radiation of this place also caused some gene sequences to mutate and that'd certainly explain the abnormal size of his alternate form. Bet you twelve thousand yen that when he transformed his body was somehow using energy from an alternate source to facilitate the increase in mass and keep him going until now."

"Gene lock? You mean some kind of genetic lock?" Willow asked, having an easier time making sense of the thirteen year old girl's words than he was at the moment.

"Yep. Quite common when taking a hybrid off of a quarantined world isn't possible or practical," the girl said with a nod and a crumb of approval for the astute following of the facts. "Just run a full scan and lock down all the genes belonging to the non-native life form, allowing only the traits of the local life form to manifest. Obviously they'd prioritize the genes responsible for the traits that'd make the hybrid stand out and let slip what they could in order to ensure the hybrid would live but it'd be painstaking work from start to finish."

"Quarantined world?" he asked, unaware that other dimensions referred to them this way or were under some sort of orders to stay off of it.

To his knowledge there were only scattered alliances between the various demonic dimensions and their residents with many of them only following the rules of the higher powers with great reluctance. Indeed, the mere fact that there were demon-human hybrids both old as well as new indicated that, if there was some sort of rule that demonic traits were to be suppressed in any hybrid, then it was not one widely followed.

"Look, I know you've got a lot of questions but with the warlock dead anything he's been using to keep his secrets from getting out to the rest of the world are gone now," the girl said as the computer vanished back into nothingness. "I dunno about you but I'm thinking a demolished town on fire is going to attract a lot of attention, with half of it being on anyone they find standing next to a big snake corpse. Unless you want to answer some questions from men in black suits, I suggest you come with me."

"And you are?" he asked, feeling it necessary to at least get a name to go with the girl.

"I am Hakubi Washu! The most brilliant scientist in the whole galaxy!" Washu replied in such a way that he knew without a doubt that the thirteen year old believed every word of it.

God help them all.

_**Rural Okayama, Japan**_

_**The Misaki House, Inside Washu's Pocket Dimension Quarters**_

_**Washu's POV**_

"Have a seat, you three," she said a few keystrokes to pop three comfortable chairs into existence. "I need to do some follow up scans of your friend here to make sure there aren't any surprises waiting to pop up."

"Surprises? Like what?" the blonde with the broken arm asked, not looking too bright from her point of view.

"Genetic mutations, unanticipated organ failure due to uncontrolled gene unlocking and unforeseen friction between his human genes and his Ctarl-Ctarl genes," she replied even as she initiated scans to look for signs of those potential problems. "Normally when a gene lock is undone, it's performed by professionals under controlled conditions following a step by step process to minimize potential risks. Done in an uncontrolled manner means just about anything can happen and the odds of the subject surviving are quite low."

"And Xander?" the redhead asked, sounding quite concerned and a little high strung.

Considering the mess she'd seen upon arrival, it was understandable. A rampage by a non-terrestrial snake of great size was a terrible thing to live through, especially since, to the best of her knowledge, all but one percent of planet's population wouldn't even believe such a creature even existed. If the poor girl had actually witnessed the creature kill someone it'd be enough for serious therapy to be required to heal the mental scarring.

She was no therapist, of course, so the most she could probably do would be to selectively erase parts of the girl's memory, including any subconscious records deeper in. Still, she was responsible enough to know that such extreme measures should only be utilized in the event that less intrusive methods prove useless.

"Well, it'll take some time for all the scans to finish but it looks like he has the devil's own luck in beating the odds. Preliminary results don't show any signs of genetic instability or biological irregularities," she replied, skimming through the data windows popping up on her screen. "Still, all that means is that if he does have any problems they're subtle. It'll take a few hours before I can unequivocally label him in the clear."

Three point seven hours to be precise.

Her years of scientific experimentation and research had burned into her mind precisely how much time each kind of scan needed to reach completion so she knew what kind of wait they were in for. A few more specific criteria entered into the scan programs and she felt safe to let them run without her supervision.

Turning to the three friends of the subject of her interest, she examined each one in turn to learn what she could through simple observation.

The oldest practically screamed proper conduct and academic devotee, definitely marking him as being raised somewhere in northern Europe, if her hunch was correct.

The redhead was obviously American with traces of shyness that made her believe that it was a recent development that she'd gained sufficient confidence in herself to move past it.

The blonde made her think of an odd cross between Ayeka and Ryoko, mixing both the former's pride with the latter's tomboy antics.

All in all they were not the sort of people she'd expect to be friends with a Ctarl-Human hybrid. The Ctarl Ctarl had a well-earned reputation in the galaxy of being some of the strongest and most resilient warriors in known space, with their only real shortcoming being technology. Due to their warrior code and rather brutal way of fighting, their technology was far enough behind what the Juraian Empire wielded that only a few small skirmishes had erupted between the two territories. If it ever erupted into full scale war, the Ctarl Ctarl might win the groundside battles but the ship-to-ship battles in space would unanimously end in favor of the Juraian Empire.

Still, the fact that the young man had been gene locked until a few hours ago probably explained why there hadn't been any wanton destruction or potential breaking of the extra-terrestrial secrecy protocols.

"That is indeed reassuring," the European said, sounding as relieved as all three looked. "However, given the terms you are using… they sound as though your expertise lies more in the scientific than the mystical."

She smiled as she realized what the man was carefully trying to probe about. It made sense that someone living atop an inter-dimensional fissure would be more informed from a supernatural angle then a scientific one. The current technological level of the planet Earth, though, was too low for them to accurately detect much less quantify the energies commonly associated with supernatural phenomena, so it was no wonder that they would use other means. Still, as a scientist, she preferred to stick with what she believed in and so she would nip any magic talk in the bud.

"Of course. I might have dabbled in the mystic arts as a hobby when I was younger but I find science to be a lot more precise," she said, not telling a falsehood per se.

"If what we have seen thus far is any indication, it is decidedly more advanced then anything I have ever seen," the European said, not quite managing to conceal the true intent of his statements. "What country do you hail from, if I may ask?"

"None that you would be aware of and it would be a planet, not a country. The planet Kanemitsu, to be precise," she replied, citing the world she'd chosen to be 'born' on when she'd chosen to start again from absolute scratch.

"Planet? Like an outer space planet?" the shell-absent redhead asked with a look that implied that her mind was rapidly approaching its maximum operating capacity.

"Of course! You and blondie here look to be out of high school, so I'm assuming you know what the definition of 'planet' is," she said, making it sound like she was surprised they weren't still in elementary school at their age.

"That means you're… you're… an alien? Right?" the redhead asked, clearly reaching critical mass mentally.

"If by alien you mean I wasn't born on Earth and have lived most of my life elsewhere, then YEP, I'm an alien." She really enjoyed nudging the girl over the edge to watch the 'show'.

"Oh," the redhead said before her eyes promptly rolled up in her head and she fainted dead away.

A cursory examination confirmed it wasn't anything serious and honestly a little time unconscious would probably do the girl a world of good in coping with the trauma of the past few hours. It wouldn't completely solve the teenager's mental issues but it would be a step in the right direction. Hopefully once she awoke on her own she'd be a little more together and willing to answer a few questions she had regarding her friend.

As for the other two, it looked like, while they hadn't been so overwhelmed that they'd be joining their redheaded friend in unconsciousness, they did represent two extremes. The blonde's preferred coping mechanism seemed to be denial of facts she didn't particularly care for but the less than firm nature of the posture let her know that the truth was a few steps away from being accepted. They'd be tough steps, with the last two requiring the strength of an entire planet to make, but she'd make sure it happened if push came to shove.

The European, on the other hand, looked like he wanted to run back to the comfort of his library and dusty old books as soon as possible. Typical technophobe! It must be hard enough for him to be around Earth's technology that being in her lab was akin to someone being surrounded by several bloodthirsty carnivores. Still, as the most intelligent-looking of the three and likely the person with most of the information, she wanted she needed to calm him down and make him more comfortable.

So with a couple of keystrokes she erected a solid light holographic environment around them of a simple yet tasteful living room, complete with the usual furniture and windows. She was even able to replicate to a certain degree the sounds and smells connected to such an environment, using what existed in Tenchi's house as a base. Looking back at the European, she could see the stress of being surrounding with technology far beyond his understanding decreasing and in a little over a minute it was as low as it was likely to go for the time being.

"Now that we're all comfy, I hope you'll answer a few questions I have," she said, sitting down in the comfiest chair that she'd managed to create for herself. "While I have been out of the loop for a while, I think I would've been told of the Ctarl Ctarl having a connection to Earth."

"I afraid that we are as in the dark about the situation as you are," the European said, taking his glasses off to clean them. "Up until a couple of minutes ago we considered Xander to be nothing more than your average teenager with an unusual tendency to get into trouble. We had no idea he could transform like he did."

"I think it would've been a bit hard to miss a twenty foot tall giant cat," the blonde said, adding her insistence that they'd never before noticed anything odd.

She didn't see any of the usual signs of being lied to and, aside from Kagato, she'd always been the best at spotting liars.

Plus these two didn't strike her as having the best poker faces.

_Mental note: invite them both for a 'friendly game' of poker with 'modest stakes' sometime in the future,_ she thought with a small grin and a mental cackle.

Still, it would imply that it had only been a recent change in the young man's natural environment that'd caused the gene lock to come undone. She'd have to access the records in the stealth satellites for the last two hours over the town in question to see if they'd picked up anything of interest. While not as advanced as something she could create, they did have a few sensors built into them that could give her some hint as to how the change occurred.

Over the next hour she asked various questions while answering precious few of her own since she had no reason to trust the two of them with sensitive information. There was no need for them to know about Tenchi and the others or anything about her off world connections. They'd already seen enough to raise some flags but, so long as she kept things contained, she was sure Mikami and Airi wouldn't be too mad.

Once she had enough information from them, she brought up a view screen tuned to TV channels found in California and asked them to relax until her scans were completed. In the mean time she'd go bring them something to nibble on while they watched but she'd make sure that they understood that curious snooping was not a smart idea.

She doubted that they'd have Mihoshi's luck for walking away unscathed after stumbling her way through the lab.

_**Two Hours Later**_

_**Washu's Lab**_

_**Xander's POV**_

_Uuhhh! I feel like someone just put me through a wood chipper, _he thought, opening his eyes even as his body ached from toe tip to the tallest strand of hair.

Opening his eyes, he flinched as the light from whatever hospital room he was in but, like usual, once they adjusted he was able to open them fully. What he saw was nothing like the hospitals he'd ever been to, both in Sunnydale and elsewhere the few times his parents decided to take him on a vacation trip. If he had to compare it to anywhere, it kinda reminded him of some of the bigger art gallery interior's he'd seen on TV, with the angular designs and big windows. Curiosity was enough to prompt him to sit up but it was then that he was informed through his sense of touch that a lot more than the room was different.

The clothes he distinctly remembered wearing to the graduation ceremony were gone and, unlike previous hospital stays, hadn't been changed into one of those gowns or even a shirt and pants combo.

Instead he only had a bed sheet to keep him decent.

A bed sheet and NOTHING else.

"O-kay… either this hospital as some really weird rules or some 'good Samaritan' decided help out," he thought, looking around to try and figure out what the heck was going on.

The more he looked, the more he thought he was about to get punked by people who were extremely skilled at constructing sci-fi stage sets. Everywhere he looked he saw something that looked like it'd fit right in on shows that emphasized exploring strange new worlds and encountering new civilizations. However no matter how hard he tried he couldn't make the connection between the gang crashing into some sort of invisible barrier and this place wherever it was. Still, aside from not knowing where he was, the fact that he only felt sore was a good thing since most people felt a lot worse after being in a car crash of any sort. Until something happened to make him think that bad luck had finally caught up with him, he'd remain positive.

_First things first. _He slid off the bed while keeping the sheet wrapped around his waist. _Find some decent clothes THEN some good answers._

With that in mind he began to walk about his new environment, looking for anything that looked like a dresser or closet so he could find something more ideal to wear. He didn't care if it was the same sort of outfit male nurses so long as it was a step up from the bed sheet he now had around his waist. As he moved, though, he began to get an itch in his brain whenever he attempted to settle back into the idea that this was just a movie set constructed by big sci-fi fans. The level of quality, the fact that some of the controls looked like they actually worked and did something, would've cost a fortune for fans to put together and he couldn't think of any studio that'd be willing to shell out cash for something involving him.

It was a couple of minutes later that he finally found something that looked like a dresser and, with a little trial and error, he found a way to open one of the drawers. Finally he'd be able to get some pants and maybe a shirt to put on.

Only when the drawer finished opening he found that the contents were nothing so convenient as that.

Panties.

Bras.

Of colors and designs that had his jaw dropping and his skin turning tomato red.

"My, My! Up already and straight to my underwear drawer," came an amused female voice from behind him. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Ctarl Ctarl teenagers do go through a period of heightened heat, so it's no surprise that it's caught up to you. Still, if you really want to hit the jackpot you should check out my daughter's dresser. She's really gotten bold since she found out she liked Tenchi so much."

His embarrassment and surprise peaked even as he whirled around to see who'd spoken but thankfully his body had sense enough to make sure he didn't accidently lose his grip on the bed sheet. Upon spotting the only humanoid female figure in the area, he felt some confusion since, to his mind, he was looking at a girl who'd just hit her teens but the… undergarments were clearly for someone more mature. After all, what's the point of a bra that size if you didn't have a rack big enough to fill the cups?

"Would it be more believable that those are mine if I looked like this?" the thirteen year old asked before stunning change took place.

With a slight twinkle effect the girl began to grow, develop and, oddly enough, her clothes also changed sizes, so by the time it all came to an end she looked more like a young woman in her mid-twenties with properly fitting clothes instead of an outfit several sizes too small. Indeed, she now looked to be… BIG... enough in all the right places to make the undergarments just the right size for her.

"Why, thank you! A woman always loves to be complemented on her figure," the pink haired woman said with a grateful smile tinged with humor.

_What the hell? Is she telepathic or something? _he thought before a slight tremor of fear rolled through his body. _Shit! I am SO screwed and not in a good way._

While having Buffy and Willow as best friends might've gone a long way to conditioning him to curb certain male tendencies, they had not completely eliminated them. As such, when he'd been evaluating the woman's now curvier figure, he'd instinctively imagined her in a brief series of steamy poses. If she was telepathic and seen all of them, he anticipated a couple of strong slaps to the face at the very least and at worst a truly cruel punishment to be delivered at a later date when he wasn't ready. Depending on how physically strong she turned out to be, it might be better to choose the cruel option.

"No, I'm not telepathic, but I have read several psychiatry papers on male adolescents and it wasn't hard to look up information on the Ctarl Ctarl either," the woman said, her smile growing a bit.

"Um… what does 'Ctarl Ctarl' mean?" he asked, not having heard the term before either in his regular school classes or during research with Giles.

"Ctarl Ctarl is the name of a warrior race from a planet in the Heifong System by the same name," the woman replied before somehow conjuring a tall black screen into the air to her right. "As for how that applies to you… well, see for yourself."

With a flicker the blackness was replaced with an image that looked to be coming from some sort of camera in order to present a live image of his appearance. Immediately he noticed several discrepancies from the last time he looked in the mirror but they were overshadowed by the features he knew shouldn't be on a human body. His ears were too big for one thing and, when he reached up to touch them, not only did he feel a bit of what could only be called fur on them but his attention was drawn to his fingernails.

Or rather what'd replaced the fingernails that were usually there.

What'd replaced them could only be considered bone white claws but, even adjusted to properly match his size, they looked to be a little bit shorter than cat claws. Nevertheless he could easily tell that they were sharp enough that, if he wanted to, it would not be beyond their ability to part flesh and draw blood.

Another thing he noticed was that, while he'd never exactly been bereft of manly body hair, he now had enough that he could easily match Tom Selleck in the body hair department. Combined with the wilder hair on his head and he looked like some sort of half beast, half man. The fact that it looked like he'd almost doubled his muscle mass since he last posed in the mirror in his room was a minor difference compared to all the others.

It was then that a possibility occurred to him that had him narrowing his eyes at the pink haired woman with suspicion in his heart.

"Care to explain?" he asked with a bit more hostility than even he'd expected.

"What? You need me to spell it out for you?" the woman asked rhetorically before taking on a more serious expression. "You are a hybrid of a male Ctarl Ctarl and a human female. Based on the results of your tests, you underwent the gene lock process on your Ctarl Ctarl genes just prior to your birth. However with your exposure to Mayor Wilkins' transmorphic shift into an Olvikan devil serpent, the gene lock dissolved, allowing your Ctarl Ctarl side to assert itself. It's a good thing it did, too, otherwise you and your friends would be in Wilkins' belly right now being slowly melted down for nutrients."

"I'm.. wha… half… transmorphic… huh?" he stuttered, his brain unable to decide what fact caused the most conflict within him.

"Basically you've always been an alien-human hybrid but your alien half has been locked away. When the mayor turned into a giant snake, he put out energy that turned the lock to dust, causing your alien side to kick in," the woman said, dumbing things down for him. "Because it did, you were able to kill the mayor before he could kill any more of your friends. Any more questions?"

Any… more…

The moment he looked to his memories to figure out what the woman meant, he was given flashes of Oz pushing both Willow as well as Giles out of the way before being captured in the Mayor's mouth. An arm… bloody, with no body attached to it dropping to the ground, followed immediately by Willow's exclamation of pain and sorrow. A surge of sadness all his own welled up within him at the loss of the only other male member of the gang and knowing the grief Willow must be feeling at the death of her boyfriend, he wanted more than anything to comfort her. If the woman could be trusted then he'd already exacted vengeance for Oz's death so all that remained was the comforting of the musician's mourning girlfriend.

"Where are they? My friends?" he asked, deciding to table his new… condition… for the time being in favor of another priority.

"Waiting for you to wake up," the woman replied before banishing the screen showing his altered state. "Since you are we can go see them but first…"

A keypad made of the same black matter as the view screen appeared beneath the woman's fingers, allowing her to tap a few keys that lit up on contact with her fingers. A moment later a folded stack of clothes appeared in mid-air before dropping to the floor at the pink haired woman's feet.

"You can wear these during your stay here," the woman said before the keypad vanished into nothingness. "I'll wait around the corner while you change into them."

Watching as she did as she said she would, he waited until he was sure he had some privacy before walking over the stack of clothes. Crouching down, he went through them all and found that, for the most part, they looked to be normal enough but bigger than his usual clothes were. This was to be expected, though, since he'd put on quite a bit more mass since his animal side did some remodeling work on his body. Grabbing the boxers from the pile, he let go of the bed sheet and quickly slipped them on before any eyes, organic or mechanical, could get an eyeful. After that came the shorts and then the tank top before ending with a set of sandals. He didn't wear sandals that much except to the beach on occasion but, if that was all he had to work with, he'd manage.

With nudity no longer an issue he walked over to the corner where the woman would be waiting and found her leaning up against the wall.

_Woman? I guess if she's the one that knows what's happened to me, I should at least know her name,_ he thought. "What's your name by the way?"

"It took you long enough to get around to asking," the woman asked with an amused smile. "I am Hakubi Washu! The greatest scientific mind in the galaxy!"

Given the sound of her name, it made her think that she was Japanese in origin, or at least from some place that had the same custom of putting the family name first followed by the given name. In any case it gave him a starting point for getting to know what sort of person she was and if she was a wolf in sheep's clothing. If she genuinely just wanted to help then she'd be a useful ally for the Scoobies once they were back in Sunnydale. Anyone capable of feats such as the ones he'd seen thus far would go far to mitigate the disadvantage they'd be forced to deal with since the Watchers Council would no longer be supporting them.

"Harris Xander," he said, remembering to put his last name first. "Pleased to meet you, Hakubi-san."

"No, no, no, no!" Hakubi-san said before shifting back into her thirteen year old form. "Call me LITTLE Washuuuu!"

An eyebrow had no choice but to pop up at that order since, in his experience, only the eccentric or the slightly nuts insisted on being called by childish names when it came to adults.

He wasn't sure which he preferred, either for his sanity's sake or his safety.


	2. Boredom? What's that?

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted materials contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and/or associated companies. I make no profit from this whatsoever and I have no intention of changing this at any point in the future. I write because it's fun and because there are those who enjoy reading my stories. Therefore please no lawsuits or similar legal action because I can promise you that whatever you get from me won't cover a fifth of your legal fees.

* * *

_**A Separate Part of Washu'**__**s Lab**_

_**Buffy'**__**s POV**_

"Mmmm… this is pretty good," she said after swallowing her latest mouthful of food. "You think they have stuff like this at the grocery store back home?"

She knew that for the most part the grocery stores only sold the ingredients to meals there were some things that came prepared in advance, like sandwiches. If she knew of a place in Sunnydale where she could get meals like this whenever she wanted, she'd definitely make a point of going there at least once a week. It'd free up her mom from having to make her lunch for school and maybe even dinner, allowing the woman to focus on something else.

"Unlikely. Most stores focus on simple meals to sell since they're easy to make and can be done in an assembly line manner," Giles replied, sounding like he approved of the meal as well. "Some of the more Asian style restaurants in Sunnydale might make it, or at least be capable of preparing it if you asked. At the worst perhaps we could ask our host for the recipe."

Geh!

While she knew she'd have to eventually learn to cook for herself one day, her attempts at making anything edible in the kitchen to date were less than acceptable. For one her mother had to toss out a pan because it'd been damaged beyond the hope of being saved. After that she had been all but banned from the kitchen, save for packaged snacks or drinks from the fridge. If none of the Asian restaurants in Sunnydale could make this meal for her, she might need to give up on it since it'd only burden her mother to have to make it.

"So… what do you think about all this?" she asked, wanting to hear her ex-Watcher's thoughts on their current predicament.

"I… I am afraid I am somewhat out of my depth in this case," he replied, setting down his fork. "We have been treated well since we met… Little Washu… and I have seen nothing to hint at a hidden agenda. Nevertheless, I believe it would be prudent to keep our guard up until such time as we speak with Xander and I have time to contact some of my own sources. Someone with access to these sorts of resources inevitably make waves that I can locate and study."

"Unless your contacts are Marvin the Martian and Mister Spock, Giles, I doubt anyone from Earth'll know anything about Washu," she said, viewing those born and raised on Earth as dead ends in the information department.

"I will admit that we will likely get only a few scraps of information but some of my sources specialize in monitoring unusual activity on a global level," he said, looking a little discouraged by the limited results he expected. "I refuse to believe that someone as… unique… as Little Washu has managed to remain unnoticed by all of them. At least one of them must have some sort of information about her that we can use to properly judge her trustworthiness."

"If you say so, Giles," she said, not conveying whether she had faith in his hopes or not.

At the moment all she cared about was making sure Xander was okay and then getting back to Sunnydale. She might've convinced her mother to leave town so she wouldn't get caught up in the chaos of the mayor's Ascension but, with the destruction the giant snake had created, it'd make all the news stations for sure. If she knew her mom she'd come back to Sunnydale in a big panic looking for her and so it'd be best if she was there to end her mother's distress as soon as possible. Besides, in the big rush to escape Sunnydale, she hadn't had a chance to picture in her mind which parts of the town had been destroyed by Wilkins' rampage and which had come through okay. Hopefully her house was okay because, if it wound up being demolished, she'd demand that Giles whip up a resurrection spell just so she could slay the Mayor again!

Hearing footsteps approaching, she turned towards the source and watched as the door opened to reveal Washu and right behind her was…

…Xander.

"XANDER!" Willow exclaimed before exploding off the couch she'd been resting on to rush to his side and hug him.

Willow had woken up from her fainting spell a short while ago and, while still broken up about Oz, the temporary trip to la-la land had done her some good. She still wanted her Xander shaped comfort blanket like nothing else but, between her and Giles, they'd managed to convince the redhead to wait rather than go looking for him. It'd been touch and go early on but eventually the girl's intellectual curiosity had found something to distract her, allowing for discussions to be had without worry. Now, though, Xander was within hugging range and it wasn't likely that the smartest girl in Sunnydale High was going to let go anytime soon.

"IwassoworriedIdidn'tknowwhathadhappenedtoyouand-" Willow began to babble out before Xander put a silencing finger on the redhead's lips.

"Easy, Willow! I'm fine," Xander said with his usual lopsided grin. "A little furrier and a lot more chiseled but nothing a full body shave or couch potato binge period can't fix."

The humor behind it all almost made her miss the fact that some of Xander's teeth were pointier than she remembered but she didn't. They weren't completely inhuman in appearance but, short of seeing a freaky dentist and asking them to sharpen the teeth somehow, there was no way they could be considered a normal feature of a teenage guy's face. Seeing him awake and standing in front of her rather than unconscious really drove it home for her how much he'd changed from what she'd gotten used to over the last three years. She didn't know whether this was a good thing or a bad thing but she did know that, unless something was done to turn him back to the way he was, Xander's life as it had been was over. Even with Sunnydale Denial Syndrome working at full strength, there was no way people would be able to overlook the changes in the professional slacker. Even if everyone in Sunnydale did initially buy an excuse like 'costume mishap', it'd only last a short while before the explanation would lose its effectiveness.

He'd wind up like Angel, forced to live in the shadows and only emerge when circumstances would allow him to blend in without attracting unwanted attention.

"So how is he, Little Washu?" she asked, remembering how resistant to cooperation the pink haired girl had been to answering question when the 'Little' was missing. "Is he going to be okay?"

"Most of the test results have come back and, from what I can tell, Xander's going to be A-O-kay!" Washu replied with a victorious smile on her face. "The removal of the gene lock might've been a complete mess but somehow he's managed to come out of it alright. It'd probably be best to have a checkup from time to time but, other than that, there shouldn't be any problems."

Everyone other than Washu breathed a sigh of relief at this since she had no doubt that all of them had been imagining terrible scenarios one after another. Now, however, she felt the time had come to broach the logical next topic of discussion.

"So how easy do you think it'll be to put him back to the way he was?" she asked, trying to keep things casual yet focused.

She spotted a slight rise of opposition from Xander but it quickly changed to acceptance. This was to be expected since she'd known for a while that Xander wanted to remain on the front lines of the fight against Sunnydale's nightlife. To him, keeping whatever abilities his current form gave him must've been quite tempting but like she'd expect of someone in the same advanced classes as Willow he perceived the reality of his situation. Even if he did wind up being able to kick demon ass in his new form, what was the point if he had to hide from the world? Despite all their bragging and posturing, she knew that demons and vampires didn't want the world to know they really existed because of the storm they'd call down on themselves. Humanity was comfortable in the delusion that they were the sole intelligent form of life on the planet Earth and only had to worry about threats from other humans. If they learned of the existence of other intelligent life forms, fear, ambition and hostility would be the big three that'd dominate the future. Humans would seek to deal with these three things by learning more about the new players on the world stage and Hollywood had been pretty thorough in showing how that often led to violence, as well as potentially fatal experiments.

She didn't want that kind of fate for Xander.

"Not at all," Washu replied without even trying to sugarcoat things.

"WHAT!?" the Scoobies exclaimed in shock at the reply.

"Like it or not, Xander is a Ctarl-Human hybrid. The only thing that kept his Ctarl Ctarl side from being visible was the gene lock," Washu explained in a somewhat professorial tone. "Without it, his alien genes are asserting themselves with a vengeance. As far as reapplying the gene lock, that was never an option. Gene locks are applied while the subject is very young because their DNA is still flexible enough to accept them without any of the usual rejection symptoms. Now that he's a full grown adult and his alien heritage has surfaced, any attempt to force the latter back into dormancy before locking it in place would carry considerable medical risk and potentially lead to permanent injury."

She didn't know anything about medicine besides Band Aids and disinfectant, but the logic seemed sound enough to keep her from seeing it as a lie immediately.

Still, she had to question Washu's claim about being the smartest scientist in the galaxy if she couldn't figure out a way around this problem promptly as well as efficiently. It could be that she was just bragging like most cocky people did but, even if that was the case, then Xander's situation remained unchanged. He would be trapped in his animalistic form forever and limited in what sort of future he could look forward to.

"Is there anything you can do?" she asked, pressing the arrogant girl for some shred of hope.

"Hmmmm… well, there ARE a few lines of inquiry I can follow," Washu replied, looking mildly thoughtful. "It'll take a couple of days, though. Earth is pretty much hermit country as far as the rest of the galaxy is concerned. Making an intergalactic phone call will be hard enough but it'll also take time if they needed to send anything here."

She felt the same sensation of discouragement as the others at this news but at least it wasn't another nail in Xander's coffin like an outright rejection of hope would've been.

"Now, now! Don't look so gloomy!" Washu said with a cheery smile on her face. "Just think of this as a bit of a summer vacation. In fact, the first thing we should do is get some food."

"Why is that?" Giles asked, mildly curious.

GGGRRROOOOWWWLLL!

Everyone looked to Xander, who was the epitome of embarrassment as he laughed somewhat uneasily.

"Because transforming into their beast forms consumes a lot of energy even for a pure blooded Ctarl Ctarl. It basically means that they can only maintain the form for a short period before they run out of fuel and are forced back to their humanoid form weakened and starving. I might've given him enough nutrients intravenously for him to wake up but that's no substitute for real food," Washu explained with amusement at Xander's embarrassment. "Shall we go?"

With those words a U-shaped door with a circular window and two smaller red circles appeared out of thin air and the pink haired girl immediately began walking towards it.

Not knowing what else to do, she and the Scoobies followed her and as they passed through the door they found themselves in an ordinary looking home. However the style of the furniture and the layout didn't quite match up to anything she'd ever seen before. Did that mean they were in another country?

"Washu-chan? Who are they?" the voice of a teenage guy asked to their right.

Turning, her eyes that way she wasn't quite sure what to make of the Asian teenage guy who'd spoken. His clothes looked to be a little out there but not alien. More like a cultural difference between America and whatever Asian country they happened to be in at the moment. Unfortunately, even in her days as queen of Hemery High, she'd only ever cared about American fashion and had never looked into how the girls her age dressed in other countries much less how the guys did.

Still, he looked cute enough.

If she wasn't still heartbroken over Angel breaking up with her and long distance relationships weren't more trouble than they were worth, she might consider investigating this guy further.

Since that wasn't the case, though, she'd just be polite since Washu's rooms were connected to what she presumed was this guy's house somehow.

Best just label it magic level tech and leave it at that.

GGRROOOWWLL!

First priority had to be feeding the beast living in Xander's stomach before he woke the neighbors.

* * *

_**A Short While Later**_

_**Washu'**__**s POV**_

_Well, only being half Ctarl Ctarl certainly hasn't reduced his appetite any,_ she thought with humour as Xander polished off another plate of rice and curry.

Sure, part of it likely had to do with the fact that it was Sasami's cooking but the rest of it was all the young man's body demanding more and more fuel. In any case there were plates on either side of him stacked three high at the moment and, based on the gusto he put into eating, it didn't look like he'd be full any time soon. His friends, however, were taking the time to savour their meal instead of just sucking it into their mouths and swallowing like he was so it'd be some time yet before they finished.

Good.

This would hopefully buy her search program the time it needed to find a match of the Ctarl Ctarl side of Xander's DNA so she could figure out what her options were.

She wasn't entirely lying about there being other avenues to explore but she doubted that the blonde, who she learned was named BUFFY of all things, had realized what they were. She'd been telling the truth when she'd said that it was too dangerous to simply force the young man's alien DNA back into dormancy before establishing new gene locks on them. The Ctarl Ctarl were a remarkably resilient people and their bodies quite durable, making them one of the most long lived species in the galaxy next to the Juraians, and especially the Juraian royal family. As such it usually took something pretty powerful to injure them and something a little special to actually kill one. In fact, to her knowledge, the only empire that'd managed to keep the cat people at bay was the Juraian Empire and that was understandable given the power Tsunami's people possessed. The royal tree ships were the most powerful vessels in the galaxy and, while the Ctarl Ctarl warships were nothing to sneeze at, the battle was more or less decided when a royal tree ship showed up. Sure, if the cat people attacked a royal ship with ten to one odds and had some sort of strategy in mind they might be able to force it into a retreat, but even that would be conditional on them having a strong enough defense.

In any case, Xander was indeed stuck the way he was for the rest of his life.

So that left only a few other possibilities if he was going to remain on Earth to live out his life along with his friends. It was, after all, standard protocol that if gene locking, for some reason, failed, that the hybrid be either deported back to their alien half's home planet OR admitted into the Galaxy Police, whereby they might be permitted the occasional visit from time to time. Sure, thanks to all the kids and grandkids and so forth that Yosho had helped sire since crash landing on Earth a little over seven hundred years ago, there was a small community close by, but they were the exception. Juraians looked close enough to humans that any hybrids between the two of them could fit in without much trouble until the differences in physical aging became apparent. For Xander, who was a hybrid of a race that had some distinctly non-human traits, unless he wanted to become a full time member of the local cosplay circuit who had a rep for never breaking character, something needed to be done.

The first and probably the easiest solution would be to fit him with a device that could form a solid light holographic appearance matching how he looked before the gene lock came undone. Add in some programming to adjust the appearance consistent with the aging rate of humans and he'd be able to fit in well enough. The only problem with that was that it wouldn't address his enhanced physical prowess or his ability to transform into a giant jungle cat resembling a liger.

Unlike what some might think, he hadn't spontaneously learned how to reign in the majority of his strength in the short time he'd been awake. Nope, after living with the likes of Ryoko and the others for over two years, she'd made some covert improvements to both the house as well as the various items in it. Durability had of course gone through the roof to ensure that, even while it was still possible for the others to break stuff, they'd actually have to put some effort into it to make it happen. From the eating utensils all the way up to the pieces that made up the house itself, she'd increased their durability as high as she could without altering their visual appearance. As such the repair bill was kept low enough that half their time wasn't taken up fixing the place or replacing things that broke like they'd been made of cheap glass.

That meant that, even if a technological method could be constructed to mask Xander's hybrid appearance, it wouldn't do a thing to keep his increased physical prowess or alternate form a secret. Indeed, it was the latter more than anything that would have the Juraian government insisting that he be moved off world or, at the very least, someplace remote on Earth where the number of potential witnesses would be kept to a minimum. Neither were options that most teenagers would agree to without some pretty good arguments forcing their acceptance.

Another possibility was to construct a suitable story to be fed to the uninformed populace that would explain away his appearance and the majority of his inhuman abilities so long as he learned some measure of restraint. Off the top of her head she could probably frame the Mayor to be a major backer in some top secret genetics lab housed under Sunnydale, using citizens as test subjects. It hadn't been all that long since the disaster happened so, if she was able to get the go ahead for this soon enough, she could probably get enough convincing evidence in place to make it work. After all, the energies given off by the interdimensional fissure had a strong suggestive effect on the minds of humans and occasionally their bodies. She imagined that Wilkins had noticed this and had used his magic to focus it into a field that would keep the sheep-like citizens from realizing the truth of their little town. Even with him gone, it probably wouldn't take much to manipulate it herself to make any who got in range accept her story without much muss or fuss.

Still, even if she went this route, he would need to be taught to control his new physical abilities as well as his transformation if it was going to work.

While she could certainly work to develop a series of exercises and training regimes to develop his level of control to the point where he could stay at the level of a human, the rest was a bit more complicated. The best option would be to locate another Ctarl Ctarl and have them teach Xander the particulars of the transformation ability as well as anything else a young Ctarl Ctarl male should know. However there was one problem with this plan.

Ctarl Ctarl were notorious for going to great lengths to maintain the image of a strong race and anything that damaged or threatened to damage that image was 'dealt with' in a variety of ways. For warriors who failed in a mission or embarrassed their people, exile was the usual method of resolving the situation. For those members of the race who intentionally stained the reputation of the Ctarl Ctarl and led lives of dishonour, the end was bloody, permanent. In the case of Xander, the biggest mark against them would be the fact that he was only half Ctarl Ctarl and the humans of Earth were considered by the galaxy to be just a step or two above cavemen. She didn't know what'd been done to keep Xander safe the moment he'd been born since she was fairly sure that the Ctarl Ctarl government would've been contacted the second it happened. The only possibility she could think of was that someone high up enough in the chain of command had stepped in and offered the gene lock as a compromise.

If the Ctarl Ctarl government found out that the gene lock was gone and that Xander was making waves on Earth, it might prove enough for them to… take steps.

While she hadn't been with the newcomers nearly long enough to really care about them, she'd feel kinda guilty if something bad happened to them when it didn't have to be that way.

_Well, I could always ask Airi to look up any Ctarl Ctarl that're beneath the notice of their government but also might be willing to help Xander,_ she thought with consideration as she took a bite of her own food. _Every society has their share of misfits and oddballs. I just need to find one that's just right for the job and Xander'll have his teacher._

A few months, maybe a year, of training and she was sure the young man would have his new circumstances under control, making the idea for a technology centred disguise that much more acceptable. Best of all, thanks to the durability of most Ctarl Ctarl, the odds of anything on Earth being able to seriously hurt or injure Xander were quite low. The majority of the melee weaponry available would be even more useless then a rolled up newspaper and even the various solid projectile weapons would at best bruise skin or crack bone. None of them would be lethal or really require a visit to a terrestrial hospital. Therefore the only problems that might crop up would be if someone were to witness the young man survive something no human could or perform some form of superhuman feat flashy enough to warrant spreading the news around.

Even if that happened she was fairly sure that the Juraian monitoring satellites recently placed overhead had access to every computer network on the planet. It'd be easy enough for them to locate, isolate, delete and then replace any sensitive information that met a set list of criteria.

She was about to take another bite of food when an alarm sound effect she'd borrowed from a TV show she liked to watch disturbed the silence of the meal. No one but her, though, knew what the alarm meant, so they were only a little annoyed but internally she was a little more serious. The alarm only sounded when she was getting a priority call from one of her contacts in the Juraian Empire and that was serious business. If it'd just been a casual chat sort of call, the transmission would've been routed to the interface she'd built into her outfit. The mere fact that the alarm had sounded instead meant the call was important AND meant for her ears only.

It didn't even take one percent of her IQ to figure out what it was most likely about.

"Looks like someone wants to reach out and touch me, so I better not keep'em waiting," she said, standing up from her seat cushion. "Back in a bit."

With that she went to her lab and activated security precautions to ensure that no one, not even Mihoshi, would be able to listen in on the conversation about to happen. Once she was satisfied that everything was in place, she accepted the connection. Immediately a thirty-two inch screen manifest in front of her but to her surprise it wasn't Airi or even Mikami on the other end, but rather the last person she ever would have expected.

Princess Seto Kamiki Jurai, also known as The Devil Princess of Jurai.

"Well, well! Lady Seto!" she said, doing her best to make this into just another fun discussion. "I was expecting either Airi or Mikami but this is even better. To what do I owe this call?"

"The inquiry you sent into the galactic genetic database, to be precise," Lady Seto said without her usual playful politeness.

Damn, this was more serious than she thought.

Normally when you had a discussion with Lady Seto, the woman kept things semi-informal, allowing for her own unique sense of humour to spice things up a bit. The number of times she'd had a serious discussion with her could be counted on one hand with a few fingers left over and that told her that her inquiry had tripped some rather big red flags. She was a bit irritated by this since she'd always been able to get into and get out of any system she'd wanted to in the past and even this time she'd bounced her request off of several relays to cover her tracks. The mere fact that Seto had managed to trace it back to her so quickly spoke volumes of how important this was to her.

Best to be straight with her and right to the point.

"A few hours ago my sensors picked up a surge in transmorphic inter-dimensional energy on the west coast of America that caught my interest. Imagine my surprise when I got there and found not only a dead Olvikanian Blood Serpent but also a Ctarl Ctarl-Human hybrid!"

There! A reaction at the mention of an Olvikanian Blood Serpent but the more telling sign was the lack of a response regarding Xander.

It could mean that she considered the presence of the Serpent to be more important but more than likely it meant that she'd known about Xander and his heritage beforehand.

Intriguing.

"I had thought the Blood Serpent's were all extinct," Seto said, referring to the chapter in the historical records about Earth that said as much.

"They are. According to what I've found out, the Earthlings have been experimenting with ether and transmorphic inter-dimensional energy for centuries now. Because of that they found a way to transform themselves into what they call 'Old Ones', which is basically a fancy way of saying pure blooded extra-dimensional life forms of significant power," she explained, recalling what she'd learned from Giles-san. "Too bad for this 'warlock' that he pissed off a Ctarl Ctarl hybrid! Ha! I wish I'd gotten there sooner just so I could've seen the look on its face!"

"Yes, I imagine it would've been amusing," Seto said, showing a little amusement before the seriousness returned. "However the problem I need to discuss with you centres on the results of the DNA match test you sent out to find a match for the source you submitted."

Huh. When she'd first laid eyes on Xander, she'd presumed that his papa had been some rogue Ctarl Ctarl using Earth as a hiding spot, or at least one of the soldiers with a habit of pushing the proverbial envelope. However such scenarios would not warrant the personal attention of Lady Seto and at worst might've resulted in a Ctarl Ctarl ship coming to the system to deal with the 'embarrassment'.

"What? So desperate for scandalous rumours and fun facts that you had to go fishing for it in some old files?" she asked, trying to pass this off as just a hobby in order to nudge Seto into revealing more.

"Old and sealed with Tsunami's crest," Seto said, increasing her stone composure even further.

"What!?" she exclaimed at the news completely floored by the news.

Files sealed with Tsunami's crest were among the most top secret files in the entire Juraian Empire and could only be accessed with the unanimous approval of the Juraian Royal Family. Normally the files contained secrets that could threaten the entire Empire, if not the galaxy as a whole, if they ever got out. Everything from state secrets to information regarding terrible weapons of war that were sealed away once the horror of their demonstrated power hit the observers. Often if there was so much as a hint that someone had even a clue about what was on those documents, a covert ops team was sent to remedy the situation by any means necessary.

"Increase your level of signal encryption to maximum and set your transceiver on a delta rotation every three seconds," Seto ordered in a tone that could not be ignored.

Making the adjustments, she waited until the system confirmed that everything was secure before turning her eyes back to Lady Seto.

"The reason why this came to my attention is because your hybrid's genetic father is Crown Prince Arawn of the Ctarl Ctarl Empire," Lady Seto explained with all the authority of her position in the Juraian Royal Family. "While their government and royal architecture are different from our own, it makes the hybrid's position similar to Tenchi-kun's, save for one little detail."

"He's a half-breed and no Ctarl Ctarl of rank would ever accept him into their circles, much less approve if he were included in the line of succession," she said, seeing all too clearly how things would likely play out if someone were try to give Xander all his blood entitled him to.

"Quite so. Even though Prince Arawn was elevated to the position of crown prince four years ago after the untimely death of his elder brother, he still doesn't have clout enough to solve that problem," Lady Seto agreed, looking as though she was working up to something. "Indeed, it's a bit of a question as to how they'll react once they've learned of the hybrid's existence."

"Once they've learned? You mean you haven't already cancelled my search and scrubbed the sensitive data from the system?" she asked since it was only logical to do so in order to keep a secret.

"Unfortunately, due to their prideful nature, the Ctarl Ctarl refused to provide us with copies of their files but instead proposed the creation of strong data links between their systems and our own," Lady Seto replied, shaking her head. "As such, while I can scrub the information from our systems, it would be a breach of our treaty with them to do the same to their systems without express permission. They almost certainly have their own programs monitoring things to ensure that sensitive data doesn't make it out into general circulation. One way or another, the cabbit is out of the bag."

That didn't bode well.

She hadn't formed any bonds with Xander and his friends but they seemed like good people. If at all possible she'd prefer not to let anything bad happen to them. However, at top speed, the soonest a Ctarl Ctarl could arrive if it departed from the very edge of their territory would be four days, assuming they pushed their ship to its limits. Given that this involved an estranged member of their royal family, the latest it would likely arrive would be seven days from now.

That didn't give them a lot of time to work something out.

The first hurdle she'd have to overcome would be to convince Lady Seto to lend her support since, even with her brilliant mind, there were limits to what she could do from Earth.

"Well, isn't this shaping up to be a big mess?" she asked rhetorically, making it sound like it'd be bothersome to deal with. "Xander isn't likely to just surrender and multiple Ctarl Ctarl duking it out on Earth is going to be hard to cover up. Sure, he's new to his heritage but he took down the Serpent, so it looks like he has some natural talent."

"True enough. Wherever Ctarl Ctarl fight, maps wind up needing to be redrawn," Lady Seto said with a nod of agreement. "I don't suppose you have any idea how to avoid that problem?"

"Welllll… if they had a reason to find him useful… something that'd make keeping him in good condition infinitely preferable," she replied as an idea began to form in her mind. "If I recall correctly Jurai is always looking to form stronger ties with its neighbours. In the interests of galactic peace and positive relations, this could be an ideal opportunity."

She could see the gears in Lady Seto's head turning as the crafty woman worked to understand what was being proposed. However, as was to be expected of such an experienced woman, realization soon lit up the eyes of the princess. When a smile imbued with mischief appeared, she knew that Lady Seto had caught onto what she was implying and what her role could be in it.

"Indeed it could be. An alliance between the Ctarl Ctarl Empire and the Juraian Empire would only increase the level of peace across the galaxy," Lady Seto said, never losing her smile. "Alone each empire is formidable, but together… together only the mad or the foolish would dare to cause trouble. You do realize, however, that such alliances have certain 'positions' that need to be filled. Certain requirements that need to be met."

"Naturally," she said, allowing a mischievous smile of her own to surface. "Do you have anyone in mind?"

"Normally one would be enough but, considering the circumstances, I think it only be prudent to add a second," Lady Seto replied as a feral quality entered her smile. "And, as it so happens, the current state of affairs has two that're just right to meet our needs."

Mentally she went over the possibilities that Lady Seto would most likely think of before eliminating them one by one until only two remained.

"Are you sure? You'd have to do without certain things for a while," she pointed out, predicting how things would go. "Maybe even endure substitutes."

"I have lived a long time. Change can be a good thing," Lady Seto said, not sounding bothered in the least. "Besides, I don't mind so long as things stay 'interesting'."

She knew EXACTLY what Lady Seto meant by 'interesting'.

She found such things interesting as well.

"Then let us talk of 'interesting' things and see if we can get most of the groundwork done before the Ctarl Ctarl ship arrives," she said, settling in for a few hours of planning. "It would only be polite after all to have everything all set up for them when they arrive."

Looking into each other's eyes, she was sure that just like her Lady Seto was imagining how interesting things would be in the weeks and months ahead. Before long neither of them could contain their amusement at the scenarios their minds were coming up with and they let laughter ring out loud, not particularly caring who heard it. Both because their own security precautions had made sure no information of consequence got out AND because they knew any who knew them would turn around and walk away upon hearing their laughter.

Experience had taught people it was safer to be elsewhere when the greatest scientist in the universe and the Devil Princess of Jurai were amused.

* * *

_**Two Days Later **_

_**In the Forest Close to the Masaki Home**_

_**Morning**_

_**Rupert Giles**__**' **__**POV**_

"Dammit!" Xander growled as yet another training implement was crushed by his now superhuman strength.

"Calm down Xander," he said, trying to pass on his own calm to the young man. "Letting yourself get angry will only work against you in this situation. Take a deep breath and let all of the anger flow out of you."

It took a moment but eventually Xander did as suggested, venting most of his internal anger and regaining his usual calm. Not entirely unexpected, all things considered, since in the past two days he'd found the lad to be quite a bit more passionate than he used to be. According to Little Washu, Ctarl Ctarl were a people with primal emotions that even years of careful upbringing couldn't completely suppress. As a result it was pretty much a universal rule that when you didn't have a warship between you and a Ctarl Ctarl, don't provoke their anger. When combined to their obvious superhuman strength that made a Slayer's strength look normal by comparison, he had a very good reason to help Xander learn to control his newfound abilities.

The training method that they had been using thus far was to take something relatively fragile and have Xander pick it up, pass it from one hand to another, and then set it back down without damaging it. The items that they were using were simple chopsticks, since they weren't particularly valuable and could easily be replaced. It was believed that if Xander could manipulate such weak implements without breaking them, he'd be able manipulate things with his hands without destroying them. Once that was mastered they could move onto learning how to push or pull something without tearing it loose from hinges and joints. The young hybrid would need to master that if he was to open doors or physically interact with other people without doing irreparable harm.

The ultimate and final test would be a sparring session with Little Washu's eldest daughter: Ryoko.

He'd been a little concerned when this was mentioned but, after he witnessed the blue haired woman punch a mature tree in half and pass through the ground like a ghost, he was put at ease. If she was as skilled as she was powerful, then at most Xander might give her a good work out. If they set specific stipulations to properly ascertain if he had achieved the necessary level of control, then sparring with Ryoko would be the ultimate test of his ability to control his new gifts. Best of all, given the advanced nature of Little Washu's laboratory, it was likely that any injuries incurred during the spar could easily be seen to.

Indeed, the infernal devices of the lab had already seen to what injuries he, Buffy and Willow had received during as well as after the graduation battle. There weren't even any scars and that would go a long way to preventing Missus Summers from 'freaking out' once they returned to Sunnydale.

Little Washu had also mentioned that she was using what time she had to spare from her various responsibilities to construct a technological disguise, much like a glamor. Once Xander's training advanced enough, they could use the device their host was making to complete the disguise thus allowing the young man to resume his life in Sunnydale. So long as the device was not damaged and his surrogate son refrained from doing anything to draw unwanted, there would be little to worry about apart from the usual paranormal phenomena.

Thus he chose to treat this as a working vacation, enjoying the benefits of Japan while also learning as much as he could about Little Washu and her associates. While he might not be a Watcher anymore, the fact that aliens were in fact real and could come to Earth meant it was an absolute necessity to learn as much as he could. Despite being formally released from his duties as Buffy's Watcher, he still felt a responsibility towards the young woman. He strongly suspected that alien involvement in Earth's affairs went far deeper than just a handful of people choosing to live in a house out in the countryside. Little Washu had called this a quarantined world and, in order for such an isolationist policy to be effective, there would need to be assets both throughout the solar system as well as on Earth itself.

Monitoring satellites sensitive enough to detect even the most advanced spacecraft.

Hidden space stations close by manned by people capable of intercepting any intruders.

Sleeper agents in key positions in every world government and military to monitor for any signs that genuine aliens had been discovered.

If so then he suspected that the agents would be ordered to eliminate those signs, along with every record connected to the investigation. Perhaps even the people involved in the investigation, should it become necessary.

Needless to say, with such a strong presence on the planet, it would pay to be as prepared as possible.

While he would admit that he might be treating Little Washu and her friends with a bit more suspicion than was warranted but until he knew more, it was the safest move to make.

"GOD DAMMIT!" Xander yelled, losing the battle to control his anger once again before delivering a powerful hammer strike to what was before him, chopsticks, table and all.

This was not the first time that the young man had lost his temper and, much like the last time, the next step was inevitable: the transformation into his giant cat form. According to Little Washu, while affected by the phases of nearby celestial objects, it was primarily an act of will that triggered the transformation. However, like many sentient species, it could also be influenced by emotions to one degree or another.

Emotions such as anger, for example.

And Xander, being your typical teenager, his emotional control was not anywhere close to complete.

Thus as before, where once there stood a slightly feral looking teenage boy, there now stood a rather large feline resembling a liger, albeit twice as large. With a rather intimidating growl Xander turned away and ran for the edge of the forest that surrounded both the Masaki home as well as the shrine up on the hill. While not the best way to express one's anger, it wasn't the worst either. Based on what information he'd gained on the Ctarl Ctarl species, angering them often resulted in a great deal of destruction as well as death for anyone who became a target of their rage. The fact that Xander had presence of mind to relocate before venting his anger in some manner was a good thing so long as no one uninformed was there to witness it or get hurt. So far nothing worrisome had occurred but all it took was one witness getting to the nearest village, town or city to spread word of a giant liger rampaging throughout the countryside. While most would likely write the witness off as drunk, drugged or just plain nutters, if someone credible chose to give the story the benefit of a doubt… it'd cause trouble for their current hosts.

As such a countermeasure was needed.

"Buffy? If you would be so kind?" he asked to his former charge, who was enjoying the morning sun.

"Yeah, yeah," Buffy said, getting to her feet before jogging after her transformed friend.

A bit grouchy but that was to be expected.

After all, they were all still coping with the trauma of what'd happened the day of the graduation and, when coupled with her 'vacation' being paired with keeping a transformed Xander out of trouble, it was safe to say that the sooner Buffy could relax without interruption, the better. Rest and relaxation were quite beneficial after a perilous experience, but only if there were few if any interruptions.

Still, Buffy was the best suited to follow Xander and gently ambush any civilians who got a good look at him. He had told her to merely destroy any recording devices that they might have on them, then 'persuade' them to keep what they'd seen to themselves. The young woman's persuasion abilities might vary in success from case to case he was fairly certain that seeing a college age lady break things that should've been too strong to be broken would prove sufficient.

If not, he hoped that whatever resources Little Washu possessed would be enough to minimize the damage.

"So what do you all plan to do once you're done here?" Little Washu asked as she worked on the 'computer' that, quite frankly, gave him the creeping horrors every time he looked at it.

"Well, I imagine we will return to Sunnydale," he replied, having given the matter some thought. "With Wilkins dead there will be a power vacuum as lesser demons attempt to fill the gap. Given that the former man had managed to keep control of the Hellmouth for a century, it is unlikely that any demons who remain will have a decisive advantage over the other."

"The stake that sticks out gets pounded first," Little Washu said, recognizing what he was saying.

"Precisely. Any demons living in Sunnydale who possessed an ability or sufficient cunning to be a threat to him was likely removed by Wilkins in short order," he said with a nod. "Therefore all that likely remain are those competent enough to fulfill the role of lieutenant or manager. Neither position would provide a demon with the necessary power or skill necessary to take hold of Sunnydale's demonic community with ease. A veritable demonic gang war is far more likely."

Indeed, factions would form, strategies would be enacted and for those caught in the crossfire, either death or tragedy would wait.

The best chance that they had was to return as soon as they could and establish Buffy, the Slayer, as the new top power in Sunnydale. For that to happen, they would have to deliberately target the most powerful of Wilkins' lieutenants and ensure that their victory over those demons was as decisive as possible. Once that was done, those that remained retreated back into their holes in fear, they could use Willy as a messenger to set forth a loose set of rules. They would keep them as simple as possible and keep them as close to what Wilkins had likely had in place during his reign as possible. The comfort of familiarity and the lifting of the blade from their collective throats would hopefully be enough to cause the demons to accept the new terms.

If it didn't… perhaps Xander's new form would be able to make them rethink their obtrusive attitude.

"As such, we cannot leave the Hellmouth unguarded for long," he said, letting none of his more personal thoughts out of his mind. "Innocent lives depend on us returning to contain and hopefully neutralize the instigators of the war before they can light the proverbial fuse."

"You might need to go back without Xander," Little Washu said in a serious tone. "He hasn't exactly gotten his new body under control and anything he might do could just wind up making things worse."

"You may have a point," he conceded as he briefly pictured how things could take a turn for the worse. "Power without control is pointless."

"Fortunately for you I have a plan in mind that should get him up to speed in just a couple of months," Little Washu said with an excited grin on her face.

"Do you mean something other than this strength control training?" he asked, not having heard of anything else up until this moment.

"Yep!" Little Washu replied without any elaboration whatsoever.

"What exactly is this plan?" he asked, his curiosity raising its proverbial head a bit.

"I'll tell you. It is…it is…" she said, lowering her voice so that only he could hear it. "…A SECRET!"

Irritation made him narrow his eyes as he tried to make it clear to the woman that he was not in the mood for games where the future of one of his charges was concerned. However either he was losing his touch or the woman in a thirteen year old's body had faced expressions far more fear inspiring than his own before.

He wasn't sure how he felt about that.

* * *

_**The Bridge of the Ctarl Ctarl Ship Orta-Honehone**_

_**Four Days Later**_

"Ambassador! Incoming transmission from the homeworld," the communications officer said from his post. "Security level…security level NINE CLAWS!" the officer gasped.

"Wha-*cough-cough*-WHAT!?"

This was BIG! Among the Ctarl Ctarl military transmission levels went from one, for a communiqué that they didn't want civilians to overhear, all the way to eight claws. The max level of eight was usually reserved for important discussions between the leaders of the military and the royal family on matters with the potential to either aid or seriously damage the Ctarl Ctarl Empire.

What then would nine claws mean?

Nine claws involved topics ONLY to be discussed between the highest ranking military officer and the top three members of the royal family, INCLUDING the emperor himself.

So the fact that the Ambassador Plenipotentiary of the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire was receiving a nine claw level transmission was completely unprecedented. Nevertheless, every Ctarl-Ctarl ship was equipped to handle such things on the off chance that those authorized to participate were aboard at the time.

"Initiate nine claw protocols," the ambassador said before walking over to the circular platform connected to the protocols. "Divert whatever power is needed!"

"Aye, aye! Nine claw protocols initiated!" the communications officer said, working on the console of his station.

Within seconds a dual layer cylinder dropped from the ceiling, completely surrounding the platform from floor on up, with one part made of a special sound absorbing metal while the other would act as a HUD interface. It took less then second for the HUD to cycle through the startup and interface securely with the communications system. Once all was ready, the technological numbers vanished, replaced by an older man who looked to have once been in the midst of some very intense fighting, judging by the scar across his forehead. After all, Ctarl-Ctarl skin is very hard to bruise, much less cut, so to have put such a mark on one implied very impressive weaponry.

"Ambassador, before I begin with your briefing, let me remind you that this is a NINE CLAW LEVEL communication. You are not to speak so much as a word of it to anyone on your ship or offer them even the slightest explanation for your orders. They are Ctarl-Ctarl soldiers. All they need do is trust their superior officer and obey orders," the older man said, his serious eyes piercing those of the ambassador. "Is that understood?"

"Completely, General Barbatio!" the ambassador replied with the utmost honest and resolve with no small amount of fear.

"Good. I would hate for a member of such a prestigious House to further shame herself by failing in such an important assignment," General Barbatio said, nodding in satisfaction. "You are to proceed to the Juraian developing world in the Sol system. There you will take a shuttle, BY YOURSELF, down to these planetary coordinates and escort the person you find there on board. You will then return to the Orta-Honehone, but en route you will order all crew to remain at least one deck away from this route to the guest quarters."

At once the blueprints of the ship came up and a red line was used to depict a VERY convoluted route to the guest quarters, sometimes crossing the same ground twice. It also showed in blue the 'no crew permitted zone' in a way that could not be mistaken by anyone.

"Once the person is inside you will activate top level lockdown on the room, only lifting it to deliver food and apprise the person of the ship's ETA," General Barbatio said without losing a speck of seriousness. "You will be taking this person to the neutral space station of Nexus Omega in the buffer zone between our Empire and the Juraian Empire. Upon arrival the crew will once more be required to remain one deck away at all times while you escort the person back to the shuttle that you will use to transport the person to the station. A group will be waiting for the person just outside the hanger bay. You will turn the person over to them. Do this and your mission will be considered complete."

The instructions sure were specific and there was no doubt that the consequences of failure would be equally specific.

"Fail and you will be stripped of your ambassador rank and reassigned to the most remote outpost the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire has until a member of the royal family mentions your name at court," General Barbatio said with a smile that made it clear that the odds of that were SMALL indeed. "Do you understand these orders, Ambassador?"

"Sir! Yes SIR!" the ambassador said, saluting the highest ranking officer in the Ctarl-Ctarl military.

"Do not fail, ambassador," General Barbatio said ominously. "Failure means weakness and the weak have no place in the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire."

With that the transmission ended and the dual layered tube retracted back into the ceiling before disappearing from view behind a hatch.

This was it! Everything was on the line!

Thus there was only one thing to say.

"Set course for the Juraian development world in the Sol System!" the ambassador ordered with great vigor and authority. "BEST POSSIBLE SPEED!"

"Aye, Aye!" the helmsman declared before inputting the necessary commands into his console.

With that the Ctarl-Ctarl warship Orta-Honehone changed directions and, with a flicker that made one think that the entire universe was shuddering, it shot forward through space.

Who knew what'd happen when it reached its destination.

* * *

_**The Masaki Home**_

_**Guest Quarters**_

_**Two Days Later, Morning**_

_**Xander**__**'**__**s POV**_

"RYOKO!"

"What's the matter, princess? Angry that you're lagging behind again?"

"Oh, c'mon! They're at it AGAIN!" Buffy grumbled from his right even as she tried to use her blankets as a barrier between her and the offending ruckus.

"You really thought that this morning would be different from the past six?" he asked rhetorically as he got started on his usual morning routine. "You've got a better imagination than me."

Indeed, from the moment they'd arrived in Tenchi's place to the present, their mornings had always been kicked off with an argument between Ryoko and Princess Ayeka. The topic of argument usually rotated between possession rights over Tenchi (they both saw him as their boyfriend), one of them doing a lackluster job on a chore they'd been assigned, or their individual views on social status. There was no real way of knowing which topic would come up on any given day but it happened consistently enough with their arguments that he'd detected a pattern.

Honestly he figured that the only reason both girls showed any restraint was because damaging or even destroying the house would only make Tenchi mad and put them in a bad light.

That and they'd have no place to eat, sleep, bathe, etc.

Their fights still led to wrecked furniture, ruined meals and some structural damage, but thankfully some old fashioned hard work, along with Washu's help, usually fixed things.

As a result, getting to sleep in wasn't an option, what with the animal keen sense of hearing he now possessed, and Buffy wasn't much better off. Slayer hearing was proving to be just as acute as his and that meant, from the first loud noise to the all-out shouting match, Buffy was awake. There were only two people who weren't negatively affected by all the commotion.

Giles wasn't affected because, being a stuffy Brit, rising with the sun was perfectly normal for him and apparently the only time he slept in was if he stayed up late the previous night. Seeing as how the Scooby gang was collectively on vacation, the older man was free to keep whatever hours he liked without difficulty.

The other one was Willow, but like the big brain she was, the redhead had chosen a more practical way not to lose any sleep. She'd gone with Sasami to the nearest town and picked up a set of ear plugs and one of those blindfold things you wore to bed to block out the light from the window. Combine her lack of superhuman senses with these items and he figured it'd probably take something like a strong earthquake or a 747 landing right next to the house to wake her up.

The only reason neither he or Buffy were using ear plugs was because, thanks to their sensitive ears, such implements were uncomfortable or, in his case, wouldn't fit properly in his ears anymore. Now that they were somewhat more feline-like, something made for human ears didn't fit anymore. Sure, he could probably ask Washu for some help since she could probably fabricate something on the spot, but he figured that they'd be back in Sunnydale soon enough.

Why?

Because yesterday Washu had apparently had an epiphany while overhearing the gang talking that she believed would accelerate his progress significantly.

Replace chopsticks with TWINKIES, the most holy snack cake in the GALAXY!

The idea was that he could eat as many Twinkies as he wanted but ONLY if he could pick them up without so much as a speck of cream filling being squeezed out. Normally this would've amounted to a relatively short training session, since there were only so many Twinkies a human being could consume before being full. However, since he'd been turned into a Ctarl-Ctarl-Human hybrid, his appetite and the amount of food he could eat before being completely stuffed had been greatly increased to the point where it could be said he was ten or twenty people in one body. As such, he could easily eat up to twenty times the amount of Twinkies he used to, making it perfect at least from that angle for his training purposes.

All in all, since he was being promised an all he could eat Twinkie feast, he had all the motivation he needed to master control of his strength as soon as possible.

Shaking off the last of the sleepy daze, he got to his feet and made his way to the bathroom to scrub up before he went down for breakfast. It'd been a bit of a change when he'd used it for the first time but fortunately he got used to it quick enough. First you sat on a stool to scrub yourself clean and then hop in the tub for a good, long soak. Buffy had been a bit puzzled as to what the point was in getting into a tub full of water when you were already clean but all they got was some sort of short explanation about Japanese culture. He tuned most of it out since it didn't really matter to him and so he'd just adjusted to the new customs without any muss or fuss.

_I__'m just glad that all this extra body hair doesn't make more work for me in getting clean, _he thought as he worked up a good lather. _There's a reason why I don't let my hair grow too long._

Still, having this much body hair was going to take some getting used to.

Once he was satisfied he'd scrubbed enough, he filled a nearby bucket with water before pouring it over his head to wash all the soap away. Repeated twice over, he figured he was free enough of soap to hop in the tub and did so, sighing at how good the warm water felt as it covered him all the way up to the chest. It didn't matter where it came from, warmth always felt good, so long as it didn't get hotter than you could handle.

Buffy had found out the hard way that now he could take quite a bit more heat than she could, even if according to Washu it wasn't to the same degree as a full blooded Ctarl-Ctarl.

Given what was planned for today, he didn't stay in the tub for more than half an hour plus it was never a good idea to hog the bathroom when the male to female ratio of the house was slanted towards the latter. A quick brushing of the teeth later and a couple passes with a brush, he figured he was presentable enough for breakfast.

Descending down the stairs a short while later, he saw the usual morning crowd milling about waiting for master chef Sasami to finish preparing their meal. Washu was on the couch working on her holographic computer but he didn't know what and he didn't want to know. He might not be as dumb as some people thought but anything the pink-haired genius was working on would only make him feel stupid. No one liked that feeling.

Mihoshi was sitting lazily in her chair, reading some Japanese manga and giggling every few minutes as she did so. Honestly he didn't know what to think with regards to the blonde alien. On the one hand the other house residents had told him that she was a fairly highly regard detective of the Galaxy Police and had brought many villains to justice. However most of the time she acted like such a ditz that it made Harmony Kendall from back home look like she had average intelligence. Accident prone, a flighty mind that hopped from topic to topic and had an abnormal ability to find her way into places that should've been able to keep her out.

Personally he called her chaos personified but, considering his past experience with chaos, he'd rather not spend too much time around her.

Who knew what might happen.

Walking over to the place at the table that he'd been using for the past week, he sat down and waited patiently for breakfast to be served. Already his animal keen sense of smell could pick up the wonderful scents wafting out of the kitchen and it was causing his mouth to water in anticipation. If there was one thing he'd treasure about his stay, it was the WONDERFUL food as well as the fact that, aside from some work in the carrot fields, their hosts weren't charging him for the food he ate. Fortunately his increased stamina, speed and strength meant tending to the fields was pretty easy work once he got the hang of it.

He might've gone through six farming hoes and a couple of shovels but he'd mastered the work.

Hearing the sound of footsteps, he looked to the stairs to find an irritated Ayeka coming down from the upper floors, looking quite put out by whatever had happened between her and Ryoko. For the most part he saw the purple haired woman as a bit high strung as well as a woman who'd obviously been drilled from a young in age in how to behave like a princess. The only time that he likely saw the real her was when she had a 'moment' with Tenchi or went at it with Ryoko for one of the usual reasons. The rest of the time it was all 'dignity' and 'royal manners' and 'important royal bloodline'. Honestly it reminded him a little too much of how Cordelia and her group always touted about how rich they were and how their money somehow made them better than everyone else.

He didn't agree. It was who a person was, how they behaved, that determined the ranking of a person.

In that case he rated himself many levels above Cordelia and her group making him glad he didn't have enough money to poison his soul.

Watching as the princess took her own usual place at the table, he debated whether or not to get involved in whatever dust up she'd had with Ryoko. Peace in the house required peace between Ayeka and Ryoko so, in the hopes of getting some quiet time later, it might be worth it. However, just as he was about to open his mouth to talk, a sound reached his ears that he couldn't quite place but he did know that he'd never heard it in all the time the Scoobies had been staying at the Masaki home. Ignoring all other sights and sounds, he focused on the oddity since, on the Hellmouth, it was usually the little things that were off that turned out to be the best warnings for trouble.

By the time that the rest of the house residents detected the odd sound, he'd only been able to conclude that that it was an engine of some kind.

An engine that was getting closer by the second and that meant guests.

Turning to Washu, he decided it was best to find out whether or not they were of the uninvited kind.

"You expecting anybody today, Little Washu?" he asked, hoping to get a straight answer.

"Not as far as I know," Washu replied, shutting down her holo-computer, "but at least they're showing more sense than Mihoshi usually does when coming in for a landing."

True.

The one time he'd been present for one of the detective's returns, he'd ended up soaked and on his butt after her ship crashed into the lake.

Curiosity was enough to get him off of his seat cushion and heading for the door to see who was choosing to pay the Masaki home a visit this early in the morning. Sliding open the door and getting clear of the roof of the Masaki home didn't take long and, once done, he looked up towards where the engine noise was coming from. His sharp eyes confirmed that it was a spacecraft but, given its size, he didn't think it could be anything other than a shuttle rather than a spaceship meant for long distance travel. Sure, all he had to work with was sci-fi movies and television shows but the logic fit as far as he was concerned. A ship meant for longer distances would need more powerful engines, as well as room to store supplies if there was any chance of them lasting all the way to their destination. A shuttle, on the other hand, was only meant to ferry people or items a short distance, usually from a mothership to either a planet or a space station, so only sub-light engines and basic accessories were needed.

_Do they have a mothership in orbit?_ he thought watching the shuttle get closer. _Might mean we should play things careful for now. Even if we can turn the tables on whoever's in the shuttle, it won't mean shit if the mothership retaliates._

It was only when it got a little closer that he was able to make out enough details to see that the shuttle had a rather odd shape. To his eyes it looked like someone had taken a four point arrowhead and slapped an engine on the back, but seeing no instabilities he supposed it had to be good enough for atmospheric flight.

"Well, well! Looks like it's a Ctarl-Ctarl shuttle," Washu said, exiting the house a couple of steps behind him. "I wonder what they want."

"They ever been here before?" he asked, wondering if various races stopped by to speak with the princesses.

"Nope! The Ctarl-Ctarl Empire and the Juraian Empire might be at peace with one another and do limited trade, but they're not the most sociable people with anyone they think is weak," Washu replied with a shake of the head. "Sure, the royal Juraian ships are powerful enough to take them on and win but any other type of ship needs numbers to face a Ctarl-Ctarl ship."

"Then what're they here for?" he asked, not caring whether he got an answer or not.

"We'll find out when they land," Washu said as the shuttle began firing its deceleration thrusters.

Watching as landing gear began to extend from the underside of the shuttle, he guessed that would be the quickest way of getting answers so long as the pilot didn't clam up or something. It was with a slight thump that could be felt in the ground that the shuttle landed, expelling through small ports plumes of white vapour that he sure as hell hoped weren't harmful. A hatch popped out of the side before the internal hydraulics raised it higher and higher until it was almost at a ninety degree angle but that was all secondary to the fact that it gave him his first glimpse of what lay within. At first he could only see more signs of advanced alien technology but this changed when a head of messy white hair and what looked to be slightly furred ears that looked to be roughly two thirds larger than his own. A moment later the top half of the pilot was revealed, showing them to be female wearing a white breastplate with thick brown pads on her shoulders. Once she fully stepped out, he could see that she wore a greed skirt, dark pantyhose and some sort of wrappings/shoe combo on her feet. When she finally stood to her full height, he took a moment to fully take in what he thought was a proper female alien. As far as he was concerned, Washu, Sasami, Ayeka, Ryoko and Mihoshi didn't count since all of them could pass for human so long as they didn't employ any of their personal gifts. Sure, Ryoko had a tail sometimes, but that could easily be explained away by calling her an eccentric lady who likes wearing costume accessories or something.

No way could anyone mistake the pilot of the shuttle as anything but alien.

Also, in terms of appearance, he'd definitely have to say that she was both cute and her body was hot. Not an ounce of fat on her and curves in all the right places. Assuming she had a decent personality then whatever she was there for, assuming it required she stay here for a while, it'd be pleasant rather than a pain in his ass.

"So which one of you am I here to pick up?" the Ctarl-Ctarl woman asked, looking at each of the people now outside of the house in turn.

Oh. So she was here to pick up one of the aliens of the Masaki home. Made sense even though he hadn't overheard anything in the daily chit-chat in the last seven days about one of them leaving. Not that that meant anything since the trip could've been planned weeks in advance or been so important that blabbing about it to outsiders would be stupid.

"Him," Washu replied but that caused him a little confusion.

To his knowledge there was only three men who were staying at the Masaki home, or were close enough to be the person needed for pickup: Masaki Tenchi, Masaki Katsuhito and Masaki Nobuyuki. All the rest of the residents were women, so they wouldn't have had the term 'him' attached to them unless they were extreme tomboys.

Turning around to see who'd be stepping forward to go on their trip, he was confused further when he didn't see a single male member of the Masaki family out in the open. True, it could be that this female Ctarl-Ctarl frequently came there and would instinctively know who 'him' was, but that line of thought died when his eyes fell on Washu, only to see her pointing at him. For a moment his brain stalled as he couldn't understand why the hell she was pointing at him when she said 'him' to the shuttle pilot.

Right up until something turned over and his brain suddenly took things at face value and accepted that Washu really did mean that the pilot was to pick him up.

"WHAT!?" exclaimed the gathered Scoobies himself included.

"When you guys first got here, you were mysteries, and if there's one thing that a scientist such as myself hates it's a mystery. So I started digging about to find some answers," Washu explained, not sounding concerned in the least. "Naturally that meant running a DNA scan on you, Xander, and then sending the readings on your Ctarl-Ctarl half to the galactic database to see who you got it from. I really did try to be discrete about it but it wound up tripping several programs with the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire. I wasn't able to get a lot of details before getting tossed out but it looks like your dad is pretty high ranked in the Empire."

"How high ranked?" he asked as the pieces of the puzzle came into view while also sliding together.

"High enough to make all transmissions nine claw level," the female Ctarl-Ctarl replied, sounding like she hadn't been made aware of him or his connection to her mission.

"Is that high?" he asked, completely unfamiliar with alien transmission levels.

"Let's just say that there's no ten claw level transmissions," she replied, focusing her attention entirely on him.

In other words this was some serious shit he was now in the middle of.

"In between training you, I've been trying to work out an ending that everyone can be happy with," Washu said, once more entering into the conversation. "In the end there was only one and it requires that you go with her. Now."

"What!?" he exclaimed in shock, still not comprehending why he needed to leave Earth.

"Could you perhaps elaborate, Little Washu?" Giles asked, no doubt hoping that his use of the scientist's preferred nickname would get results.

"It's simple. Ctarl-Ctarl society is centred on strength. More specifically, physical strength as well as the strengths that you'd usually connect to a warrior based culture," Washu replied, taking on a more professorial tone of voice. "As you can probably guess, they don't approve of anything that would weaken their people from an individual level all the way up to their society as a whole. This includes mixing blood with a race they would deem inferior to their own. Like humans."

"You mean they want me dead," he said, tensing himself in preparation for a fight with the shuttle pilot.

"That would be their normal response, yes," Washu replied, nodding with equal seriousness. "Fortunately for you that would cause a mess and there are enough people high up in the Juraian government who'd rather avoid that. So a compromise was worked out and part of it needs you to go with her."

"What exactly is this 'compromise'?" he asked, wanting to know precisely what he was getting into.

"All I know is that it's a deal worked out between the royal families of both the Juraian Empire and the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire, involving the improvement of relationships between the two empires," Washu replied, sounding disappointed that she hadn't been able to find out more. "The rest they decided behind closed doors."

In other words big decisions made by bigwigs that'd have big consequences if he didn't play along.

"And what exactly is in this for me?" he asked, wanting to know what the payday would be for him to go along with all this politicking.

"Well, for one thing the Ctarl-Ctarl won't hunt you down to wipe the stain of your existence from the face of the galaxy," Washu replied, making it sound like the least important thing. "For another, who better than a Ctarl-Ctarl to teach you how to make full use of your heritage? No one. I can come up with all the training regimes I want but it's better to learn what you need to from someone with the same abilities. Besides, you'll be helping two galactic powers seal the deal on something that'll benefit them a lot. Surely people like that would be grateful enough to properly compensate you for your efforts. Maybe with a few thousand credits."

"A few thousand credits for leaving my home to go off and do who knows what?" he asked like that'd be less than what he'd consider acceptable.

"A few thousand Juraian credits," Washu replied after bringing up her holo-computer. "Translated into American dollars it would be… this much."

Turning the screen in his direction, he looked at the translated amount and instantly the gravity focused on his jaw became so great that it dropped down as far as it'd go. Never in his entire life did he think he'd ever have this kind of money and, if Washu was right, then with this kind of money it'd be years before he'd have to find a job to pay the bills.

It was definitely tempting but…

"Fine. I'll do it, but on ONE condition," he said with as much resolve and inflexibility as he could manage. "While I'm away, if my friends need any help, they GET IT. They need information you do your best to get it for them. They need help kicking ass you give it to them. One of them gets hurt bad enough that normal hospitals are useless you use your super space science to make sure they fully recover. No way am I going to leave my friends high and dry because some high society types can't get along. Even if it means having cat people try to kill me for the rest of my life."

"Hmmmm… activity on top of inter-dimensional rifts does tend to be pretty hectic," Washu said, considering his demand a little bit. "I'm sure Ryoko wouldn't mind lending a hand every so often. She's always complaining about how boring things get around here."

This was both encouraging as well as worrying.

On the one hand Ryoko was powerful and could probably bisect just about any demon living on the Hellmouth causing trouble but… she also had a habit of getting a little out of control.

Especially if she was drunk, or at least that's how Sasami-chan explained it to him once.

"If you can convince Ayeka to go along and use her barriers to keep the battle damage to the area from getting too high then that'll do nicely," he said with a hopeful smile on his face.

"I'll see what I can do but no promises," Washu said with rueful grin on her face. "She is a princess, after all."

"True."

"Are you sure about this, Xander?" Giles said from where he stood. "You are essentially going off into the unknown with only the word of people we've only just met that it will be safe."

"What's that?!" the shuttle pilot growled, as though slighted. "My orders are to take him to a neutral territory space station and pass him off to the Juraian envoy and that's what I'll do! I don't care if every pirate in known space tries to get in our way! I'll crush'em!"

"You hear that, Giles? I've got one of the toughest races out there to see me halfway and some of Princess Ayeka's people waiting to take me the rest of the way," he said, feeling more reassured about what he was getting into. "If things go south then at least you won't have to go far for payback."

"You have nothing to worry about, Xander." Princess Ayeka said, stepping out of the house. "I shall personally speak with my parents on the matter. If a problem does occur, it will not be the fault of the Juraian Empire."

"I might not have the connections she does to the royal family but I swear on my honour as a Ctarl-Ctarl warrior that I shall fulfill my mission, no matter what," the shuttle pilot said with enough vigour that you couldn't help but believe her.

"Then looks like we've got a deal Miss… um, what's your name again?" he asked, realizing that in all the time since the pilot left her shuttle he'd never gotten her name or rank.

"I am Ambassador Plenipotentiary of the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire Aisha Clan-Clan!" Ambassador Clan-Clan said, making it sound like it was one of the most prestigious roles in the universe.

His not being educated on galactic politics, however, made it just sound like a fancy title for someone whose job it was to act as the face for her people to other races.

Still it was better than just calling her 'cat-girl' the entire trip to the neutral space station.


	3. The Hazards of Space Travel

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted materials contained herein. They are the rightful property of their respective creators and/or associated companies. I make no profit from this whatsoever and I have no intention of changing this at any point in the future. I write because it's fun and because there are people who enjoy reading my work. Therefore it would be greatly appreciated if no legal action was taken against me because I can promise you that my complete net worth won't even cover half of your legal fees.

* * *

_**The Ctarl-Ctarl Shuttle Ascending Towards The Ship Orta-Honehone**_

_**Aisha Clan-Clan's POV**_

Who is he?

It was a question that had her glancing at her passenger even as she piloted the shuttle up to the Orta-Honehone. She'd learned a bit from what'd been said after she'd exited the shuttle on the surface but she knew that it couldn't be the entire story. Knowing that he was a hybrid connected to someone highly ranked explained a little of what was going on but questions lingered in her mind, like why wasn't 'Xander' killed as soon as it was discovered that he'd been conceived? Why hadn't he been killed since then? She knew that many members of the noble houses of the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire would not stand for the idea of a hybrid existing, especially crossed with a species that was so weak. As such, it wouldn't have been out of the question for one of them to secretly send assassins to eliminate the hybrid.

Whether they made it a priority to make the death look like an accident or allowed it to plainly be seen as an assassination, that'd all depend who sent the assassins.

The fact that a gene lock was put place and that it'd been kept quiet for so long implied that a deal had been struck with individuals at the highest levels of both the Jurain and Ctarl-Ctarl empires. She tried to think back to when she figured Xander had been born to see if she could recall any unusual events had happened around then. Sadly she'd never really been one to keep a close watch on galactic events and generally only focused on things that showed the galaxy how great the Ctarl-Ctarl really were. Maybe a promise of future compensation made by one side to the other? Possible. Most Ctarl-Ctarl weren't the patient sort, so it must have been pretty good bit of compensation to make her people go along with the deal.

_I doubt they'll ever bother to tell me, though,_ she thought with disapproval at her treatment.

It was hard to believe that, once upon a time, she'd been a stainless example of what it meant to be a Ctarl-Ctarl warrior and a rising star in the military. She'd worked as hard as she could to do her parents and family proud, graduating with honors from the military academy. From there it'd been a steady rise, with it being entirely possible for her to become the youngest army commander of soldiers in the last three hundred years. It'd been enough to have people taking steps to get in her good graces and even offers of assistance from those of immediately superior rank to her.

It should've been smooth sailing for her… until HE showed up.

Salil Set-Set.

He was the heir to the Set-Set weapon's manufacturing conglomerate run by his father and, while nothing to be proud of in terms of fighting prowess, was a cunning navigator of politics. As such he would never rise to power based on his merits as a warrior and therefore had made efforts to find alternatives.

One of them, unfortunately, was finding a suitable woman who was respected and on the fast track to high officer rank and courting her, with the end result being marriage. By doing this he could use the woman's accomplishments to bolster his own reputation, facilitating his rise the ranks as well as opening political opportunities. By chance or by bad luck she'd been the first soldier he'd chosen to make his future bride but she'd been uninterested in such things, preferring a mate who was equal or superior to her in combat. She'd more or less told him this when he'd approached her with the benefits of becoming his bride and she'd fully expected him to make veiled threats, but he'd done nothing.

Or so she'd thought.

When she'd gotten home she'd found surprise guests in the living room with her parents: the head of the Set-Set family and his wife.

Apparently the latter had approached her parents with the concept of an arranged marriage with Salil, citing several ways in which both families would benefit from such a union. She'd told both members of the Set-Set family that, while their son was a 'distinguished' member of the military and the Set-Set army a valuable contributor to the empire, she had no intention of marrying their son. She'd expected her parents to support her in this but, much to her surprise back then, they'd actually tried to persuade her to consider the offer. They'd pointed out that such marriages were not uncommon amongst the noble families of the empire and that it need not interfere with finding a true mate. It would only mean that she'd need to exercise discretion and secrecy with regards to who knew about the true owner of her heart.

She'd rebelled against the idea of deceiving both the Ctarl-Ctarl people and hiding her true mate like he was some sort of shameful secret but her father had pulled out all the stops.

He'd reminded her of his love for her and her duty to the Clan-Clan family in order to ensure its prosperity and furthering its glory.

If there was one duty that was paramount to every Ctarl-Ctarl after the empire itself it was the duty one had towards one's own family. One's family was like one's own personal empire and your duty to it was not something that you could just throw aside casually.

It was not something that you could defy for no other reason than your heart refused to accept something.

As a result, she had RELUCTANTLY agreed to the arranged marriage but had made it clear that any 'love and devotion' she showed Salil would be nothing more than an act for the 'audience'. The leader of the Set-Set family head had understood this and had been honorable enough not try to force her to feel what she did not feel or claim that she would 'learn to love his son'. The man had only requested that she not do anything that would bring shame to either family.

She'd tried to do that and had managed it for a full six months until she'd been required to attend a military ball with Salil. It had been a grand affair with several important people from throughout the military architecture, as well as some of the noble families. She'd played the part of fiancé despite how arrogant her 'betrothed' behaved and how many liberties he took in where he chose to place his hands. Her only good luck had been that the public setting had put restraints on just how far he could take his caressing without crossing certain societal lines that would do him more harm than good. She'd hoped that that would've been enough to keep the night from getting any worse than it'd already been.

Her hopes had been for nothing.

As soon as they'd made it to the luxury transport in the parking garage, Salil had told her that she had pulled enough foreplay from him and that he wanted something MORE. Willing to remain true to her commitment to her family, she'd inquired about what Salil meant by 'more' and his response had offended her greatly.

An aggressive squeeze of her boobs and a hand obviously intending to reach beneath her dress made it clear he saw her as a piece of meat he wanted to sink his teeth into.

She was NO ONE'S meal!

She'd made that clear to Salil the same way her mentor had taught her to respond to any other slights against the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire.

Violently.

With a thrust kick she'd sent Salil through the window of the transport to the parking garage floor before exiting herself, intent on teaching the filth the 'error of his ways'. Naturally the fool had been quick to convey his displeasure at his treatment and how this could negatively affect the arrangement between their two families. With a dishonorable smile he'd suggested that if she 'compensated' him with appropriate enthusiasm, he'd overlook her inappropriate conduct. The idiot'd been so confident that with the support of their respective parents he had the high ground that he'd considered her earlier defiance pointless in the long run.

He'd been less confident five minutes later after she'd brutally taken him apart in the garage.

It'd been as Salil had lost consciousness that he'd promised retaliation for this affront that would cost the Clan-Clan family dearly.

She'd been worried about what that could mean but fortunately help came in the form of applause that came from one of the garage's stair entrances. Her worry had become fear since having a witness to what she'd was far worse than simply Salil's own venomous words. Such a vile collection of words could be discredited or defended against but someone willing to support her 'fiance's' position would be harder to deal with.

As it'd turned out she needn't have worried.

The spectator had voiced his approval of what she'd done and his own distaste towards Salil's actions. He'd told her that he would have a sit down with the young Set-Set heir and 'persuade' him that perhaps wedded bliss resided with another female Ctarl-Ctarl. When she'd asked him who he was, the spectator had only referred to himself as 'a friend'. After that she'd left as quietly as she could, borrowing a coat from one of the waiting staff before doing her best to slip away from where the ball had been held.

It'd been a few days later that the head of the Set-Set family had regretfully told her father that his son no longer desired her and that the betrothal was at an end. She'd done a passable job looking 'disappointed' and, in the weeks that'd followed, she'd believed that her troubles had turned to dust.

In truth, though, they'd just taken another form.

Though subtle, she'd gradually begun to encounter more and more hurdles to her advancement within the military cleverly cloaked in protocol and 'tests of her abilities'. It'd only been when she'd been overlooked for a fifth time when the possibility of a rise in rank came up that Salil had contacted her outside of her assignment at the time. He'd made with the usual pleasantries about seeing her again, how her career was going and then flaunted the identity of his 'true love'. She'd called him on his false pleasantries and it'd been then that he'd hinted at his responsibility for the troubles she'd had advancing up the chain of command. She'd presumed that he'd used his family's connections to influence those with the means to control who went up the ranks and how fast they went. She'd then asked him what he'd want to end his interference but he'd merely laughed at her for a solid thirty seconds.

He'd declared that that he didn't want anything from her other than for her to continue feeling anger, frustration and hopelessness.

His reason for appearing before her and revealing his role hadn't been to provide her with a method of freeing herself from his interference but simply to let her know who was responsible. He'd told her that his actions were purely for revenge and that he would take great satisfaction in seeing her struggle in futility as she tried to force her way up through the ranks through hard work.

In the months that'd followed she'd tried to investigate on her own to find out who the man's agents might be so that she'd be able to expose them of abusing the power they'd been given. Sadly, for all her glowing skills, she didn't have much talent for the fine touch work and had wound up only risking further problems if she'd continued. As such she'd worked with great diligence to be the best that she could be despite the obstacles in her way and hoped that the way would open up soon enough. Any Ctarl-Ctarl lacking in honor enough to block her from receiving her hard earned rewards would make a mistake sooner or later. Even if it wasn't her who caught them, they would still wind up being brought to justice eventually.

Hopefully with Salil Set-Set being dragged down with them.

It'd taken her years to work her way up to being named Ambassador Plenipotentiary of the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire but even then she still felt the eyes of Salil's cronies watching her. Any slip ups, any mistakes they could capitalize on, and she'd probably lose her current position. She'd probably be lucky if she didn't get reduced to a mere guard for a random base in some remote corner of the empire.

She was pretty sure that General Barbatio was one of the ones Salil had the ear of and so it meant that failure in her present mission would be just the opportunity her enemies would need to destroy what she'd managed to build thus far.

_I won'__t fail!_ she thought with a narrowing of her eyes. _I will deliver Xander to the space station without fail!_

To that end…

"This is Ambassador Clan-Clan to the Orta-Honehone," she said after pressing the transmit button. "I am on approach. Initiate automatic docking procedures and then withdraw to level blue compartments. This is a PRIORITY ORDER. Any crew member, no matter what their rank, who disobeys will be arrested and punished to the full extent of Ctarl-Ctarl military law! Move it, you kittens!"

With that she released the transmission button before waiting to see a specific light turn on that would indicate that automatic docking procedures had begun. In the time it'd take for the shuttle to touch down in the shuttle bay and for two people to exit that room, her crew should fortunately be in the level blue compartments waiting for her permission to leave. She would only give that order once Xander was in his assigned quarters and she'd initiated full lock down on those quarters, as per General Barbatio's orders.

From there they'd set course for the space station of Nexus Omega by the fastest route accessible to them and, if anyone was foolish enough to get in their way, they'd learn the folly of opposing the Ctarl-Ctarl.

She'd make sure of it!

* * *

_**A Specific Ship in the Middle of Nowhere**_

"So let me get this straight: you want ME to take MY SHIP and attack a Ctarl-Ctarl ship that's currently on its way to Nexus Omega. We are then to kill everyone aboard before disposing of the ship itself in the nearest sun or black hole we can find. In exchange for this, you will pay us the promised sum of money AND provide us with a way to escape detection by Juraian and GXP ships. Is this correct?"

"Yes. I would think that the generous sum and the means to acquire even more through your usual methods would be ample compensation for the task being asked of you."

"It is, though I have to wonder why you contacted me with this job offer. This is more Tarant Shank's field of expertise than mine."

"While Tarant is more accustomed to killing for what he wants, the man indulges himself too much in… baser entertainments. I need this done quickly, efficiently, and in a way that adds the Orta-Honehone as one more ship that disappeared without a trace. Of all the people I considered for this, you fulfilled most of the requirements."

"Very well. My crew and I will take the job."

"Excellent, and as a gesture of good will, I am depositing a quarter of the agreed upon sum into the following account. You'll get the remainder once the Orta-Honehone is officially declared missing and presumed lost with all hands aboard."

"However it goes without saying that if you betray me in an effort to 'tie up loose ends', you had best pray that the word 'escaped' does not get entered into ANY report. I can guarantee you wouldn't like what would come next."

"But of course. It is a key point of a good business deal that both parties live up to their end of the arrangement. Besides, I doubt anyone would believe you if you told them that I was involved in our little 'arrangement'."

"True. I'll contact you when the job is done."

With that the connection was cut and, as per protocol, the helmsman executed an emergency jump just in case someone unwanted as homing in on this side of it.

"Is it wise to do this, captain?"

"Worried, old friend?"

"Getting involved in the affairs of the upper class of any empire can sometimes prove to be more trouble than it's worth. It can even prove fatal under certain circumstances."

"True. That's why I sent an infiltration program back along the connection to the system on the other side. The idiot was foolish enough to make this call from his own home. By the time we're done, the program will have made copies of every sensitive file he has and forward them to one of our drop points via encrypted courier. If he double crosses us or refuses to pay us the remainder of our fee, we'll have more than enough information to plan our revenge with."

"I should've known you'd have a backup plan at the ready. I am sorry I doubted you."

"You're my second in command. It's part of your job to second guess me and let me know such things. Otherwise you'd just be another bootlicking lackey and I have enough of those already."

Indeed she already had enough crew who thought flattery would get them a bigger cut of whatever treasure they 'acquired'. However she rewarded actions and accomplishments more than words. With a job like this, she'd find out all too quickly which crew members were worth keeping around and which she'd pawn off on some other pirate ship.

There were always captains looking for cannon fodder, after all.

* * *

_**The Orta-Honehone**_

_**En Route to Nexus Omega**_

_**The 'Guest Quarters' **_

_**Xander**__**'s POV**_

_They may not like me but this isn't all bad,_ he thought as he flipped through the intergalactic version of TV for something interesting. _The room's comfy, they kept the food basic enough and their version of TV is enough to keep me distracted until we get to wherever we're going. So, aside from the door being locked, I've got nothing to complain about._

Besides that, his soldier memories made it all too clear that aboard a military vessel guests were not given free rein to go wherever they wanted. Considering what he was to the Ctarl-Ctarl, he considered himself fortunate that they didn't have him drugged up and unconscious in some cramped storage locker for the duration of the trip. Sure, he had some curiosity in him that wanted to learn more about the people he was fifty percent connected to by genetics, but he wasn't going to push his luck. He was just here to get someplace to do whatever he needed to do to get taken off the 'someone to kill/assassinate' list and then head back home. From what Giles had told him, with Wilkins gone, all the local demons would try to maneuver themselves into being the new top nightmare of Sunnydale. That'd mean fights that innocent people might get dragged into as well as a few idiotic ideas that could screw up the entire state of California, if not the planet.

The Scoobies would need to be at full strength if they were going to keep things from getting any worse in Sunnydale.

Upon coming to a channel that looked like it had some sort of stand up comedy show on he decided to give it a try on the off chance that humor was the same everywhere. A good laugh was priceless when life robbed you of reasons to smile, so they were always to be taken when the opportunity arose. Seeing a pair of aliens get up on stage, he found them odd looking but he assumed that the show had some sort of screening process so that only the good ones got on the show. So he watched patiently while doing his best to give non-Earth humor a chance to tickle his funny bone. After all, according to Willow, it was often a good thing to try something new from time to time in order to broaden your horizons.

He lasted all of three minutes before he changed the channel and wondered just how differently alien brains were wired when compared to human brains.

What the hell was so funny about an alien saying 'gimme a break, will ya' upwards of twenty different ways?

Even preschoolers would have trouble finding anything funny about that.

CHNK…CH-INK.

Hearing the sounds of the locks on the door being withdrawn, he turned to see Aisha enter once more and let out a small grin. Even though she was the only member of the ship's crew he'd seen or interacted with, her personality made the obvious isolation measures tolerable. She was rowdy and a little clumsy at times but with a ton of pride in her people as well as her own level of physical fitness. When most people thought of ambassadors, they thought of people in their forties or older who conducted themselves responsibly since anything they did would spill over to their country.

In his mind this pretty much meant going around with a titanium rod up your butt with only a token effort made to seem approachable.

That description definitely didn't fit Aisha Clan-Clan in the least.

"What's up?" he asked, wondering what'd brought her to his room this time.

The last couple of times had just been to drop off food and give quick status updates on the progress of their trip. The food had been good but the rest might as well have been gibberish, since he knew nothing about anyplace other than Earth and even then his familiarity was limited to America. A lot of the solar systems and space locations she mentioned meant nothing to him and probably wouldn't until such time as he cracked open the proverbial book on intergalactic geography.

"Just letting you know we'll be a bit longer in getting to Nexus Omega," Aisha said, copying his small smirk. "An ion storm has developed along our route and we're going to have to slow to sub-light speeds to get through it. Going any faster would get the Orta-Honehone damaged and set back our arrival time by days instead of hours."

"No problem. You know more about this stuff than I do. If you gotta slow the ship down to keep everything running smoothly I have no problem with that," he said, showing that he didn't mind the extra travel time.

Honestly, when it came to travel he'd never been outside of Sunnydale except for the one time his DNA contributors took him to a big family reunion in Colorado Springs. He couldn't really remember much about the trip but he did remember that Tony had gotten into a fight with his mother's brother about something, resulting in them leaving early. From the moment phones gained a digital display that told you who was calling, Tony and Jessica left standing orders to NEVER answer the phone when the area code for Colorado Springs was shown on the display.

It was sort of because of this that, once he got back to Earth, he'd go on his cross country road trip as soon as it was possible with his uncle's place being one of his destinations.

Just because his legal parents didn't want anything to do with Uncle Jack that didn't mean he had to follow their lead on that.

"Good," Aisha said before sitting herself down on an empty chair. "Now turn to channel four thousand and fifty-three, would ya? My favorite show's coming on!"

"Huh?" he asked since this was a distinct shift in her usual visitation pattern.

"What do you mean 'huh'?" she asked, puzzled by his reaction to her actions.

"Well, usually you just come in and either drop off food or let me know how much longer the trip's gonna be," he replied, deciding to clarify his confusion. "You don't decide to up and watch TV with me."

"I needed some time away from the crew," Aisha said with a bit of annoyance and worry. "They're starting to ask questions that I can't answer. I figure since I'm the only one with the access codes to this room, I can hide out in here awhile."

Made sense.

If him and why they were taking him someplace was top secret, then Aisha couldn't tell anyone anything or she'd get in big trouble with her superiors.

"You know you're just delaying the inevitable, right?" he asked, feeling obligated to point this out. "They're still going to have questions when you leave the room."

"Maybe, but by then I'll have some made up answers they'll believe," she replied before narrowing her eyes a bit at him. "Now change the channel!"

Deciding that it was probably best not to defy an ambassador he changed the channel to the one she wanted and was pleasantly surprised to find that it looked to be some sort of fighting match, like wrestling or boxing. He couldn't really tell since he could see elements of both in the images being shown but the bottom line was it'd caught his interest. So far the show was just showing a couple of clips of previous fights that seemed to focus on one dog guy fighter and the other being someone that I thought was human except for the unusual hair/eye color.

"So who're these guys?" he asked, wanting an experienced viewer's summary rather than what the commentators were tossing out.

"The mutt's name is Redgui Fa Uara and he's the number one contender for the title," Aisha replied, clearly not liking the dog guy. "The other's the reigning champion, some Juraian guy related to a general or something, and the fight's been a big topic for weeks."

"Doesn't sound like you're a fan of either of them," he said casually in case this turned out to be a sensitive subject. "If you don't then why're you going to watch the match?"

"I like the sport but I don't like the fact that they won't let Ctarl-Ctarl compete!" Aisha growled, clearly having felt like this for a while. "Just because the ONE TIME one of our people got a little too aggressive and wild they came up with a rule making it forbidden for us to compete! It's not fair!"

"Define 'aggressive and wild'?" he asked, wanting to know specifics before he took sides.

"The building might've gotten a few cracks and the ring messed up, but that's all!" Aisha said even as a slight twitch told him she was understating things a bit. "No got hurt real bad and no one died! It's not the fighter's fault the Federation and the arena owner were cheap when it comes to building materials!"

Translation: the Ctarl-Ctarl fighter went primal and held back only a little if at all.

Imagining how that would've gone at a major sporting event and it was no wonder that the people in charge had come up with the rule forbidding Ctarl-Ctarl from fighting in their events. The entire business depended on people coming to watch, buying the merchandise and buying food to eat while watching. If people were too afraid of getting hurt then they wouldn't show up for the fight and, if the arena's kept getting damaged, then the owners would refuse to host the fights due to the costs involved.

"Maybe some Ctarl-Ctarl should start up their own fighting federation," he suggested, figuring it might calm her down a bit. "Then they can show the galaxy how an operation like that SHOULD be managed."

"Good luck with that. Most Ctarl-Ctarl don't see sport fights as anything good," Aisha said with disappointment at the hopeless possibility. "To the Ctarl-Ctarl, fights where no one gets hurt is kid stuff. Broken bones, cuts and blood are par for the course for a warrior. No Ctarl-Ctarl would back the creation of a federation where their warriors would have to play nice with each other."

If the Ctarl-Ctarl were anything like the Klingons from Star Trek, then he understood where they were coming from. Most warrior cultures made a big deal of putting their lives on the line and injuries were often seen as badges of honor, so long as the injury was acquired honorably rather than dishonorably. To create or even participate in a sport fight where one of their arms were tied behind would be insulting at worst and uninteresting at the very least.

"So even though you're angry, who's your money on for this match?" he asked, deciding to move things along.

"The Juraian, of course! Those stupid mutts can't fight worth shit," Aisha replied, making it clear that she was resolute in her decision. "How he managed to become the number one contender I'll never know. Must've paid his opponents to throw the matches. Get their great Wau hope into the limelight!"

He'd seen a few Wau on the TV and nothing he'd seen made them out to be incompetent, weak or unlikable. However with the way Aisha was acting indicated that there was some serious bad blood between the two races that probably stemmed from some incident in the past that long memories couldn't forget.

After all it couldn't be something stupid like the Wau were dog-like and the Ctarl-Ctarl were cat-like.

Right?

* * *

_**A Little Over An Hour Later**_

_**Ambassador Aisha Clan-Clan**__**'s POV**_

"C'mon! C'Mon! One more hit and he'll go down!" she yelled at the TV even as the champ continued to hammer his Wau's defenses.

"Yep. He started out good enough but he lost it after that knee to the jaw," Xander agreed from his chair. "Everything after that's been nothing but trying to buy time."

"You're giving him too much credit," she said, shaking her head. "I could tell after the first three scuffles he wouldn't last. Probably got picked for this fight cause he's the best of the worst and because they could play up the angle of giving an underdog a shot at the title."

"Maybe, but sometimes the underdog does manage to come out on top in a fight," Xander said, offhand his eyes never leaving the view screen. "Usually when the champ gets careless and gets his clock cleaned because they underestimate the challenger too much. That's what we call 'a puncher's chance'."

"Maybe, but you'll never see a true Ctarl-Ctarl warrior make that mistake," she said with grudging acceptance of his idea. "No matter who we fight we always give it our all and don't stop until we achieve victory!"

Indeed that was the Ctarl-Ctarl way: to prove one's strength and to never allow weakness to take hold.

Since she'd been a little girl, this had been taught to her first through the child stories her father had told to her and later in the vid-programs she watched. With every year that passed the way in which this message was conveyed might change or gain greater context, but the bottom line remained the same. SOME Ctarl-Ctarl had a pretty warped interpretation of what the way of their people meant but she'd taken it exactly as it was spoken.

"The challenger is staggering under the punch-kick combinations by the champion. It is anyone's guess how much longer he can remain standing," the commentator said even as the Juraian executed a knee thrust that broke the Wau's defenses. "The guard has been BROKEN! Are we about to see the final blows in this electrifying match!?"

"Go for it! Super duper ultra kick!" she yelled even though she knew the Juraian couldn't hear her.

"There it is! The beginning of the champion's signature finisher combo!" the commentator crowed enthusiastically. "This could be-SSQQQUUAAAKKK!"

Shockingly, IMPOSSIBLY, just as the fight was about to come to an end, the image switched to a random assortment of distortion lines with static audio thrown in. It didn't last long since the ship's systems quickly threw up a 'signal lost' message but the end result was the same.

She didn't know for certain who won the fight!

"NOOO!" she cried even as she tried to work the controls for the vid-screen to restore the signal of the fight.

No matter what she tried, though, nothing changed, with the damn 'signal lost' message annoyingly remaining on the screen. With a growl of frustration she walked over to the com-unit built into the wall by the door, establishing a connection with the bridge.

"What's going on!?" she yelled, not bothering with any preliminary statements.

"We've entered a portion of the ion storm where the molecular density is unusually high," her second in command replied, sounding like he understood she demanded prompt responses. "It's interfering with all transmissions both outgoing as well as incoming."

Feeling her annoyance grow a bit, she recalled how such things were not common but they had been known to happen from time to time. Most of the time whenever a ship detected an ion storm developing along their flight path they altered course to go around it, but she didn't have the time for that. She knew from the moment they departed for Nexus Omega how long it would take and had sent advance notice to the Juraians as to when her ship was expected to arrive. If they'd bothered to go around the ion storm, it would've added another six hours to their trip and that would sour the completion of her assignment, especially if the Juraian envoy waiting for them took offence to the delay. Those types of people were a bunch of snooty, self-centered people, after all, who never stopped looking down on the Ctarl-Ctarl.

Such a delay would also provide openings for Salil and his allies to put another black mark on her military record, and perhaps even cost her the position of Ambassador Plenipotentiary of the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire if they made a big enough deal out of it.

"Are any other systems affected?" she asked, wanting to get an accurate picture of the situation.

"There are some random instabilities in the navigational deflectors but they only last for a few seconds at best before the monitoring program adjusts to compensate," the second in command replied, sounding like he was looking at each bridge station for more information. "Primary sensors are also showing a loss of resolution that's causing the identification subroutines some difficulty labeling what's going on outside of the ship."

She was no ship engineer but she didn't like the fact that the primary sensors were getting blurry even as they were essentially cut off from communicating with anyone outside of the storm. Ideally it would be nice if they could increase speed to leave it as soon as possible but the nature of such phenomena made that impractical. They were already travelling at the maximum velocity judged safe for traversing an ion storm and it was likely for this reason that they were experiencing these problems. If they tried to accelerate further the problems would probably only get worse until other important systems became afflicted with issues.

"Have the chief engineer examine the situation more closely and see if there's a way to fix the problems," she ordered, deciding that if speed wasn't the solution then some ship adjustments might be.

"Understood."

With that she terminated the connection to the bridge and pondered for a moment if there was anything else she could do to ensure that these annoying problems didn't impede her mission further. With the sensors blurred because of the ion concentration, they'd have to slow down more in order to ensure that they'd didn't slam into anything. The instabilities in the deflectors might let something in no matter how temporary they might be. Even if Ctarl-Ctarl ship armor was strong, a big enough asteroid or piece of space debris could still do some damage if it hit.

If it hit the wrong place, they might be delayed even further!

_That's it! I'm not taking any chances!_ she thought before punching the code to open the door.

"Where're you going?" Xander asked sounding a little puzzled.

"To see if I can find a quicker course out of this ion storm without costing us travel time," she replied as the door opened. "At least I'll find out how big this pocket of dense ions is so we can get past it."

With that she left the room and reestablished the lockdown so Xander didn't get any ideas about exploring the ship. While she had gotten to know him better during the course of the fight, her orders were still there and it'd be a violation if the passenger set even a single toe out of his assigned room. She still wasn't quite sure why Barbatio was insisting on isolation since it'd quickly become clear to her on the trip that the guy didn't know a thing about the galaxy and had probably grown up on that planet from birth. Even tech that the rest of the galaxy took for granted seemed to catch his attention, so there was no way he could be any more dangerous than a Ctarl-Ctarl child.

That could only mean that the isolation wasn't due to what Xander could do but rather what he was physically.

He wasn't full Ctarl-Ctarl and she'd been able to tell from the moment she'd laid eyes on him. Personally she didn't care but she knew that a lot of the old hardliners in the Empire were VERY picky about what sorts of half-breeds were allowed to exist. However, that only solved half the equation since in order to get General Barbatio involved the Ctarl-Ctarl side of Xander had to belong to a noble family of significant rank. One high enough that, if the truth was even suspected, it could have serious ramifications for the entire Empire.

It was probably why she'd been ordered to hand the kid over to the Juraian's at Nexus Omega station rather than have the matter be handled strictly by the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire. By limiting the number of people who knew of the mission and, with her being the only one who actually knew Xander existed, much less what he looked like, potential damage could be strictly controlled. Barbatio had probably already insisted with the Juraian Empire that Xander's lineage be kept secret until measures could be taken to neutralize any negative events.

Assuming they didn't just forbid the truth being revealed in the first place.

Marching her way down to the shuttle bay, she arrived in short order and then began to prep the shuttle for launch. She wasn't taking it out as it was though since she knew that ion storms were hard enough for big ships to handle never mind shuttles. Ctarl-Ctarl shuttles were versatile in that additional parts and equipment could be attached or detached depending on the requirements of the mission. With a few commands she put auxiliary fuel tanks on the shuttle while also adding armor that would provide a measure of protection against the harmful effects of the ion storm. Both customizations had their limits, of course, but she'd keep a close eye on the shuttle's systems in order to know when it was best to turn back.

"Ambassador? What're you doing?" came the voice of her second in command over the ship's inter-com.

"I'm going to scout ahead for a way out of the ion concentration," she replied even as the last of the additions finished being incorporated into the shuttle. "It's slowing things down and the way its affecting ship's systems is a potential risk to the mission. I won't allow either! Don't worry, I won't go far."

"Very well. The chief engineer will continue to work to find a way to overcome the problems with the ship systems I mentioned," her second in command said with a little reluctance. "Should he be successful before you return, we will come to pick you up."

"A race then, huh? Sounds like fun!" she declared with a bit of humor as she pilot side hatch opened.

* * *

_**A Position Close by The Orta-Honehone**_

"A shuttle's departing the Ctarl-Ctarl," the crewman at tactical reported from his station.

"Let it go. Shuttles are short range, even with auxiliary fuel tanks. It'll either run dry, killing the pilot, or return to its ship, where WE will be waiting to finish it off. Begin the approach."

"Aye, aye!" the helmsman replied before operating his console.

"Keep it slow! Minimal thrusters to maneuver us through a hole in their navigation deflectors undetected and remain unnoticed by their sensors. This'll all be for nothing if they realize they've been set up."

Indeed it had been a royal pain preparing the molecular concentrations inside the ion storm, not to mention remaining safe in spite of it. Still, it'd been a cunning plan her crewman had come up with and it minimized the risks while maximizing the odds of success. It'd been easy enough to predict the route that the Ctarl-Ctarl ship would take and, when fate provided them with some help, she'd decided to take advantage of it.

Now, though, they were at the most stressful part of the plan where it'd either fall into place or blow up in their faces.

With the sensors of the Ctarl-Ctarl ship fuzzed up thanks to the ions, their friend or foe programs wouldn't be able to identify her ship as a threat, especially if its approach velocity was kept low. With the gaps that formed in their navigational deflectors they could get VERY close to the target ship whereas in normal space it would've been impossible. Then, once they were close enough, the final part of the plan would come into play all but sealing their victory in place.

Only if nothing went wrong beforehand.

Only if.

"Passage through the gap in the navigational deflector complete," the helmsman stated, causing the crew to collectively relax now that they were past that hurdle. "No sign that we were detected!"

"Good. Get us within range then extend the umbilical until it makes contact with the target port. Burn through will have to be quick. Begin pumping Nepeta gas the second it gets through."

"Aye, aye!"

Given what their current employer hired them to do, even getting this close would prove difficult when pitted against the Ctarl-Ctarl crewman. There was a reason those vulgar cats had the reputation they did and, as much as she'd prefer to believe otherwise, it was well earned. Since she had no particular desire to see herself or her crew hurt, she'd acquired the Nepeta gas before setting out for the projected intercept course. To most of the galaxy it was a harmless substance that at best might be useful as an ingredient for a meal but for the Ctarl-Ctarl it was something far more useful.

Indeed, once enough of it was pumped through the corridors of the ship, the umbilical was extending towards a child would be able to complete the job.

_It's too bad the client insisted that none of this spread past this ship,_ she thought with a chuckle at what was about to happen. _Those foul cats would throw a galaxy wide FIT at how one of their ships had been taken down!_

* * *

_**The Orta-Honehone**_

_**The Locked Down Guest Quarters **_

_**Xander**__**'s POV**_

"WARNING! WARNING! HULL BREACH IN SECTOR FOUR DECK NINE!"

"What the hell?" he asked no one in particular as the warning sounded not just from the speakers in his room but also out in the hallway.

It'd been less than an hour since Aisha had left to scout out a quick way to safety and he'd spent most of the time trying to figure out what he'd do once he got home. The obvious thing would be to go back to Sunnydale and help the others. It was a good thing that he'd already planned on moving out of Tony and Jessica's house and best of all, since travelling to Japan and then across the galaxy counted as a 'road trip', he could use the money he'd saved to get his own place. It was better this way since, no matter what sort of disguise or tech he got to look like his old self, there'd always be the possibility of someone discovering the real him.

If he had his own place, he'd have a place where he could drop the illusion in relative safety.

Relative because no one who lived atop a Hellmouth was ever truly and completely safe but at least with his alien heritage unsealed, he'd be safer than he'd been beforehand.

Willow would probably chastise him for not aiming for something more than a day job and nighttime slaying but, really, that was enough to satisfy him. Anything grander would take him away from the fight and that could mean anything from the loss of an innocent life to the end of the world as a whole. It'd be a pretty shitty end if he was on his way to work or celebrating a promotion only for hellfire to roll over him like a tidal wave because he wasn't there to help stop it.

Now, though, it looked as though something bad had happened that could potentially put an end to all of his plans.

Getting up from his chair, he went over to the controls in the wall that Aisha had used to contact her crew but, as he reached out to contact them, he wondered if he should. To the best of his knowledge he was being kept secret from the rest of the crew and, because he was of mixed blood, there were people who'd want to kill him. If he contacted the bridge then others would know of him and there had to be a reason why only Aisha had come to his room the entire trip. Letting his hand drop, he wondered if there was anything he could do other than wait for the crew of the Ctarl-Ctarl ship to solve the problem.

When an odd smell caressed his nose, he looked up and saw some sort of gas that was almost invisible was coming through the air vent. Was this the work of the ship's crew or was the hull breach responsible somehow? As a strange sensation fell over him, he realized that whatever the gas was, his body was not immune to it and when his mind began to cloud over he knew he could be in trouble.

_I have to get out of this room._ He tried to recall the buttons Aisha pressed to open his door. _Even if this gas is being pumped throughout the entire ship, staying in this room'll just make this worse for me quicker._

It was hard to think but with a mental push he remembered and tapped the buttons in the right order. When the door opened he could see that indeed the gas was leaking into more than just his room, but at least in the open hallways it'd take longer for the gas to reach dangerous levels. His mind was still fogged but hopefully he'd be able to keep his head on straight long enough to figure out where he had to go and what he had to do in order to put a stop to all this. Sure, doing something would increase the odds of him being seen by the crew, but sitting by and doing nothing wasn't his style.

Carefully moving down the hallways, he did his best to keep an eye out for people or anything that looked like it might be a security camera. He'd seen enough action movies to have a general idea of how best to get by the cameras and, if he saw someone, he'd just go in the opposite direction. Looking as he went, he saw writing on the wall but he couldn't make heads or tails of it since it didn't resemble any language he'd seen before human or demon in origin. Fortunately, when he passed a view screen, it was repeating the same combo of letters over and over again. Considering the warning that was coming automated through the speakers, he'd bet the letter combos were related to that.

_If the way Ctarl-Ctarl write is anything like human's write, the middle word in the third set of words is the name of the place where the hull breach was located,_ he thought, reasoning out a course of action. _If the hull breach is the source of this gas then that spot needs to either be sealed off from the rest of the ship or whatever made the hole needs to be dealt with._

A plan in mind, he began to navigate the hallways listening for people and peeking around corners to try to spot any security cameras.

However it was when he encountered his first crew members that he began to wonder once more about just WHAT the gas was and what it was supposed to do. Why? Because there on the ground were two members of the crew but instead of dying, being dead or even just being knocked out, they looked more like they'd been doing some serious drugs. Both of them had dreamy looks on their faces and were making sounds that kinda but not really made him think of a cat purring, but whatever the situation they were COMPLETELY out of it.

The fact that he wasn't in a similar state made him think that maybe it had to do with the fact that he wasn't a full Ctarl-Ctarl.

Then again, it could just be that it was taking longer to put him into that state and, if so, it meant that he needed to move quicker before he was completely put out to lunch by the gas.

Using a little less caution and a little more speed, he continued to look for the same combination of letter characters he'd determined said 'sector four, deck nine'. Every few turns he came upon more and more crew just as high flying as the first ones he found, so at least when this was all over it'd be unlikely that they'd remember him. Given the whole proud warrior thing Aisha had going on, they'd probably want to forget the entire thing happened, so if he threatened to tell people of how stupid they looked at the moment.

He probably wouldn't REALLY tell anyone but so long as it kept the right lips from being loosened that was all he cared about.

Time passed and it was taking rising amounts of focus to keep his mind clear enough to not be a wandering zombie instead of a reasonably smart half-breed. Fortunately he had enough brain cells to spot when he came upon markings that were almost what he was after telling him that he was in the right neighborhood.

Sadly, when it came to him, bad luck tended to follow whatever good luck he had and so, when he turned the next corner, he encountered three more people.

People that were NOT Ctarl-Ctarl and were NOT barely conscious on the ground high on the gas. Though that might have to do with the fact that they were wearing helmets of some sort that kept any of the gas from getting into their lungs. As soon as he saw that they were armed with guns of some kind, he immediately rushed for the nearest source of cover. A good thing since, a moment later, energy blasts the size of daggers began to pepper the cover he was hiding behind.

"I thought all the Ctarl were supposed to be stoned on the Nepeta," one of them said without letting up on the gunfire. "What's this one doing on his feet?"

"Does it matter?" a second one asked, not sounding concerned in the least. "There're three of us, one of him and he's unarmed."

"Besides, all we gotta do is knock him on his ass long enough to pour some of the poison we got down his throat," the third said, sounding focused on the task ahead of him. "Ctarl-Ctarl might be tough against blades and blasts but they can be poisoned just like anyone else."

"Yeah. Guess you're right," the first one said, sounding more sure of himself. "No way did the ones we found so far cough up blood for no reason before going quiet."

They were behind the gas. They knew what it'd do to the Ctarl-Ctarl crew members.

AND they were poisoning the helpless crew they came across without a care and his instincts told him that they intended to do the same to everyone not their ally.

Cowards!

MURDERERS!

Inflamed by what he'd learned, considered thought ceased to have power and emotion had the final say of the day. Rolling out from behind his cover, he recovered his footing before charging the hated invaders, fists clenched and ready to deliver a serious beating. He ignored the shots coming from their weapons that succeeded in hitting him and instinct helped him recover the few times he was knocked off stride by energy blasts.

Pain was nothing new to him. He'd felt it from the abuse of Tony Harris and from the monsters that plagued his hometown.

All that mattered was making these three pay for the lives they'd taken.

Should he come across others who'd done the same as the trio before him, they'd suffer the same fate.

This he swore!

* * *

_**The Ship Connected to the Orta-Honehone**_

"We have a problem, captain," her first mate told her calmly. "I'm getting reports that a single Ctarl-Ctarl male is attacking the boarding party. Seven are dead already."

"That's not possible. Nepeta gas' effects on Ctarl-Ctarl are well documented and even the ones that have some immunity to it shouldn't be able to put up much of a fight," she said, rejecting what she'd just been told even though she knew that her first mate would not lie to her.

"Nevertheless, the reports are too numerous to be mistakes," the first mate said, sounding sure of his words.

"Very well. Have the closest teams converge on the male's last known position," she ordered, deciding that this needed to be dealt with immediately. "Once they find him they are to concentrate fire on him until he stops moving, and then pour double the dosage of poison down his throat."

"It will be done," the first mate said before conveying her orders to the boarding party.

"Any sign of the shuttle returning?" she asked, recalling the other loose end.

"None, however I have ordered that extra care be taken to alert us the moment it reappears on sensors," the first mate replied, showing that she was right to make him her second in command.

"Good. I want no more surprises," she said conveying that she would be unhappy if there was any lack of diligence.

Unlike some of the people in her line of work, she saw her crew as family and the loss of even one was something she took VERY personally.

If the boarding party failed to kill the male Ctarl-Ctarl, she would take up the job herself.

* * *

_**The Shuttle Yuko of the Orta-Honehone**_

_**Aisha Clan-Clan's POV**_

"This isn't right," she said, looking at the object she'd just discovered.

She'd done her best to search for as quick a route as possible out of the ion concentration and had the foresight to make her own map so that she could find her way back. It wasn't the most scientific of approaches but she wasn't like those people in engineering or even the science officer, so it was the best she could do. Keeping an eye on her fuel gauge, she searched until she'd noticed a fluctuation in the ion readings that she'd thought indicated the edge of the concentration. She'd immediately set course but instead of finding what she sought, she found an object.

A satellite of some kind with tiny motes of light emanating from it, but vanishing not far from it, making it impossible for her to follow either by her eyes or with sensors.

The tech looked improvised, cobbled together, rather than something that'd been manufactured in a factory, and that didn't sit well with her. Those without the resources to make something professionally wouldn't have left one just hanging in the middle of nowhere and no other ship had been detected outside the ion storm before her ship had entered it. That meant that whoever owned the satellite was either planning on returning for it later or were inside the storm itself. Given how her subordinate had told her that transmissions within the ion concentration were impossible, it'd mean that whoever owned this would have to be close by to maintain a connection.

Putting her sensors out as far as she could without rendering the information she got useless, she tried to find a ship big enough or designed well enough to survive an ion storm. Due to the limited effective range of her sensors, it didn't take her long to finish looking but, when she was done, she had nothing to show for it. No ship or any sign that a ship might be close by.

_If they don't care about the satellite enough to keep an eye on it, then what's it doing here?_ she asked, trying to solve the puzzle that'd been presented to her.

A makeshift satellite on the edge of a concentration of ion molecules, no one close by to keep tabs on it and it looked like it was emanating something. What did it mean? Hmmm… hmmmm… hmmmm… could it be?

"No!" she exclaimed as a possibility occurred to her that would ruin everything if it were the truth.

Immediately she brought the shuttle around and charted the quickest course she knew of back to the Orta-Honehone. She had to get back there before it was too late!

It'd all been a trap.

Even though she'd never heard of technology that could affect ion storms like this, all the pieces of the puzzle fit together. There'd been nothing about the ion storm that'd looked off before they'd entered it and even her subordinate had mentioned that the concentration was odd. In her mind there had to be a group of satellites like the one she'd found in order to concentrate enough ion molecules to engulf the Orta-Honehone to the point where they couldn't see where it ended with the ship sensors. The only motive that made any sense was that the concentration was meant to entrap her ship while also rendering it vulnerable somewhat.

You only made something vulnerable if you intended to attack it.

The enemies she had promised to protect Xander from had struck and she'd done the worst thing possible by leaving the ship along with him unprotected!

She had to get back there quickly if she was to keep her mistake from getting any worse.

_This is exactly the kind of screw up Salil and his bunch'd love to capitalize on,_ she thought even as she tried to think of another way to maximize her speed.

She didn't care if the shuttle fell to pieces three seconds after it touched down in the Orta-honehone!

All that mattered was that she got back before all you could call her assignment was a failure!

She would not dishonor the Ctarl-Ctarl!

She would not dishonor her FAMILY!

She would not dishonor HERSELF!

* * *

_**The Orta-Honehone**_

_**Sector Four, Deck Nine**_

_**Xander**__**'s POV**_

_Okay… I'm here,_ he thought even though thinking was proving hard. _Now what?_

From what he could tell, some sort of tube with a metal petal like opening at the end had managed to pierce the hull and it was from within that tube that the invaders were coming from. It was also where he could see five hoses coming from spewing the gas into every vent both naturally a part of the ship as well as some 'improvised' ones the trespassers had created. It'd explain how the stuff was spreading throughout the ship so quickly.

There were… eight… guards in the area protecting their only way off the ship as well as their means of channeling the gas through the ship to keep the Ctarl-Ctarl incapacitated. He'd… he'd managed to kill some so far but none of them had appeared in groups bigger than four and the corridors had worked to his advantage.

This room, however, was large and there were fewer impediments to keep them from getting to him. Looking down at himself, he could see the damage their weapons had done to his clothes and there was even a few spots of light burns where they'd managed to concentrate their fire for a time. They didn't do much more damage than a good punch or kick when the invaders focused their fire effectively. He didn't fancy seeing what eight of them could do with room to move and nothing in their way.

Looking to see what he had to work with, the soldier echo he could tell that the patrol patterns were such that no crate or piece of equipment would hide him for long. By that same token they had sufficient line of sight with each other that, even if he tried to take them out one at a time, they'd notice before he got even halfway finished. A direct fight wasn't going to be fun and it was possible that being so close to the source of the gas might magnify the effects that were already weighing heavy on his mind at the moment.

_Then again…_ he thought as an epiphany had him getting the measurements of the room, _…maybe there's a way to end the fight quickly._

Picturing the dimensions of the room in his mind and comparing it with what he knew, his mood lightened since his idea did look like it stood a chance of working. It wouldn't be pretty and he was pretty sure that, if he didn't do something about the tube that let the invaders board the Ctarl-Ctarl, he'd wind up right back where he started, but it was the best option he had at the moment. The only other strategy was to whittle down the enemy forces by randomly ambushing them aboard the ship until the cost of the boarding became more than the payoff.

That way would take too long and result in more unnecessary Ctarl-Ctarl deaths.

_Guess it's time to see good I can fight on four legs,_ he thought before leaping from the maintenance vent he'd been surveying the scene from. _BANZAI!_

Pulling his inner jungle cat from where it resided within, he could feel the changes overtake him as bones repositioned themselves even as they changed shape. Skin changed and fur began to grow so that, by the time he landed on the floor of the room, he was no longer in anything that resembled human. Instead, as Little Washu had shown him back on Earth, he was a twenty foot tall jungle cat that resembled a cross between a lion and a tiger, but with coloring that disqualified him from being a Liger.

Needless to say the invaders were taken aback by his arrival and he used it to full effect, lashing out with claws to swipe at the closest of the invaders. As though hit by a wrecking ball they were thrown into the air before slamming into the wall, only to bounce off before dropping to the floor motionless. Before the shock of his arrival wore off completely he decided to really rattle their souls and lunged forward, jaws wide, before chomping down on the unlucky idiot. No, he wasn't developing a taste for the meat of sentient beings, but nothing would put the fear in a person's soul like seeing someone literally bitten in two. With all the strength in his jaws he could muster and a little help from his right paw, his victim went from one piece to three, with him spitting out the middle piece.

"H-he killed Karl Bit him in two!" one of those that remained exclaimed in fear, unknowingly taking a few steps backwards.

"W-w-we need help!" another said before reaching for a radio on his belt.

No. Letting him summon reinforcements would only make things harder for him, especially since his giant cat form was an ability that depended on having calories to burn. Sooner or later he was going to run out and that meant he had to resolve matters quickly. Lunging for the one that was reaching for his radio, he swatted at the invader, knocking him into a comrade while sending the radio clattering across the floor to stop who knew where. Not wanting the still-moving foe to get up to go after it, he slammed his paw down on the two of them, adding as much of his weight to his strength as he could to increase the damage done.

Bones cracked and blood poured, then both beneath his paw moved no more.

By this point there was only one guard left but, before he could act to end the male's life, the outcome was decided for him when his last foe fainted on the spot.

It was rather anti-climactic but he wasn't going to argue.

_Now to deal with the hoses,_ he thought, turning to the next problems on the list.

Just cutting the hoses wouldn't do a thing so he'd have to settle for plugging or blocking them in order to stop the flow of gas. Looking at the large room, he tried to find something heavy and, once he found it, he lifted it up in his jaws before dropping it atop two hoses, stemming but not completely stopping the gas. Over and over again he did this until finally the last hose was more or less neutralized, leaving only the boarding tube to be dealt with.

The simplest option would be to simply plug it so that nothing human sized could travel through it but, depending on how strong the invaders were, it might be unplugged at the worst possible moment. So instead he decided to pinch the tube at this end since there was no way that the people on the other side would be able to come through more than one at a time, assuming they could squeeze through at all.

Striding towards the tube, he was baffled when his right front leg lost half its strength, almost causing him to stumble to the ground. It was a good thing he had experience with walking home from fighting with a slight concussion since it allowed him to catch himself this time. Thinking that he must've consumed more caloric energy than he thought, he attempted to hasten to finish his task before he was forced to revert to his humanoid form, but this time it was his other leg that failed him. He tried to catch himself with his right front leg but its strength was far too inferior for that and so down to the floor he went, his mental focus becoming shaky as a result.

"So it's finally taking effect," a woman's voice said with bubbling malice. "Would that you would have fallen to its effects sooner that my crew would not have suffered so many losses."

With some difficulty he turned his gaze towards the voice coming from the boarding tube and watched as a dark haired woman clad in a form hugging outfit stepped fully into view. Honestly it struck him as being what an anime otaku would've come up with if they'd been asked to draw a female space pirate captain. A mix of fan service for the guys, with a variety of odds and ends disguised as jewelry, and only a couple of things that looked like genuine space pirate gear. All in all, if it wasn't for the malicious look on her face that implied serious payback in his near future, he would've considered her VERY hot.

Hell, given the past few years, he'd still consider her hot, and simply consider her wanting to kill him just another dose of the sort of luck he tended to get.

"However they WILL be avenged! I will see to it PERSONALLY!" the captain of the pirates declared with venomous fury. "Before I am done, you will know my name is R-!"

"CAPTAIN! CAPTAIN, COME IN!" a digital voice screamed through what he figured was the captain's com-piece.

For a moment it looked as though the female captain was torn between continuing her vengeful dialogue and responding to her crewmember but with a sigh chose the latter.

"What is it, Roku?!" the captain snapped with anger. "I am in the middle of something here!"

"The Ctarl-Ctarl shuttle… IT'S BACK!" 'Roku' replied with great concern in his voice.

"THEN. SHOOT. IT. DOWN!" the captain growled, obviously considering this to be a poor reason for interrupting her moment of vengeance. "We were expecting this!"

"Yes captain but… BUT… she's towing one of our satellites behind her!" Roku explained, clearly disturbed by this revelation. "If we open fire on her it'll…it'll…"

"Are they CRAZY!?" the captain exclaimed as she realized WHY her subordinate was so concerned. "If that thing detonates… ALL HANDS, RETURN TO THE SHIP! ALL HANDS RETURN TO THE SHIP! WE'RE GETTING OUT OF HERE!"

"But captain! What about the job?!" another voice exclaimed through the com-piece.

"We can't do this job or any other if we're dead!" the captain roared into the com-piece. "Now get everyone back to the boarding tube and use the spatial charges to keep the shuttle back! Use the highest sensitivity setting the proximity sensors have! That should keep that mangy feline pilot off our backs without setting off the satellite."

"R-Roger, captain," Roku said with evident concern. "Issuing the emergency recall command now. ETA until everyone's back aboard… ten minutes!"

"Tell them to haul ass!" the captain growled before apparently terminating the connection. "If they're so much as ONE SECOND late, they're getting left behind."

Looking at him once more, he could tell that she was debating whether or not to still try for her bit of revenge but in the end chose to err on the side of caution.

"Do not think that this is the end of it, fur ball," the captain warned before turning towards the boarding tube. "You have grievously hurt me and my crew and there WILL be consequences for that. Sleep fitfully as you try to figure out when and HOW vengeance will come at you. Sleep with one eye OPEN!"

With that she was gone from his view, leaving only the remains of his most recent battlefield to surround him.

Thinking of what he'd heard, it sounded like Aisha had returned and brought something with serious boom potential that could go off with even the slightest bump or burn. He wasn't sure how he felt about such volatile cargo being brought closer to the ship he happened to be on but it was getting the pirates off the ship in a hurry. So he'd consider it a good thing until some idiot decided that taking a pot shot at the satellite was a good thing.

As the booted feet of the pirates that'd been going about the ship killing any defenseless Ctarl-Ctarl they could find went by him, he considered trying to force himself to move to kill a few more or at least keep one from leaving. From the way that the pirates had been talking, it sounded like this wasn't just some attack of opportunity but rather something they'd been given by an unknown party.

Someone had HIRED them to attack the ship and, unless they wanted to remain in the dark, they needed to find out who their employer in this venture was and their motives.

Sadly his body was still in the same weakened state it'd been before the captain had first spoken and so he knew that the most he'd be able to do would be to knock a few over by sheer chance. Instead he would wait either for the drug in his system to wear off on its own or for someone to give him an antidote.

_Well, I wouldn't exactly call this a victory, but anything you can walk away from is a good thing,_ he thought as he watched more pirates escape into the boarding tube.

He just hoped that this didn't turn out to be the first of many interruptions on their trip to the Nexus Omega's space station. If this was the first of many then it'd probably follow the stereotype of being successively more dangerous with each new threat until it'd be a miracle if they managed to get to their destination intact.

Interesting times…

…was there ever a more insidious curse?

He didn't think so.


End file.
